Bayeux Tapestry returns to Britain for temporary exhibition

The Bayeux Tapestry, a nearly 70-meter long medieval embroidery depicting the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, has returned to Britain for a temporary exhibition at the British Museum. This marks the first time the UNESCO ‘Memory of the World’ registered artifact has been in the country in almost a millennium. The transfer is a cultural collaboration between France and the United Kingdom.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis used the event to highlight the issue of cultural repatriation in an article for The Guardian. He drew a comparison between the Bayeux Tapestry, which remains a single, intact work, and the Parthenon Sculptures, which were removed from Athens and are now divided between London and Athens. Mitsotakis argued that while the tapestry is being shared through temporary loan, the Parthenon Sculptures should be reunited with their original site in Greece.