 |
| Triton in his Sea Chariot |
For a writer of historical fiction, and for
an historian, the museum is the place to go for research.
Not only can you learn a lot about people
and places, you can also come face to face with the possessions of the people
and places about which you are writing. You can interact with the items that
decorated and served long-ago worlds – Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Carthage and
Rome etc. etc.
In a museum, culture is frozen in time as a
sort of gift to future generations, a window to peer through and better
understand those who went before us.
I’ve been to a lot of museums in my
travels, large and small, great and not-so-great. But there was
 |
| Hall of the old Bardo Museum |
always
something to be learned, something to take away with me that I could use in my
writing.
This post, I wanted to touch on a
particularly wonderful museum that I visited in Tunisia – The Bardo Museum in
Tunis.
When I went to Tunisia to do research for Children of Apollo and Killing the Hydra, visiting Punic and
Roman sites on the fringes of the Sahara was one of the biggest thrills of my
travels.
When our 4x4 left the desert behind, I was
disappointed to be back in the city. Tunis held none of the allure of the southern
desert or the fertile green hills of central Tunisia. There were no ruined
temples or amphitheatres, no mosaics or ancient streets as open to the sky,
unsuffocated by modernity.
 |
| Ulysses on his Voyage |
We pulled up outside a rather unassuming
building and were told this was the ‘famous’ Bardo Museum. I probably rolled my
eyes, remembered swaying palms and Saharan sand beneath my feet. I dreaded the
dark building before me after so much perceived freedom.
I was so wrong. When we entered the Bardo,
my eyes fell upon some of the most magnificent artistic creations I have ever
seen.
The walls and floors were absolutely
covered with myriad mosaics of such colour, such intricacy – I thought the
images would jump right out at me.
And they were tucked away in this little museum
that, up until that point, I had never heard mentioned
 |
| The 'Days' of the Week |
by anyone at university
or elsewhere.
I decided this week to look back over some
of the photos I took at the museum and enjoyed revisiting those moments when I
locked eyes with a tesseraed Triton or the striking statue of a Roman woman.
When I looked at the website for the Bardo Museum, I found that they have moved to a completely new, more spacious
building. Here is the link where you can also take a virtual tour of the new
Bardo.
The new museum is stunning but for me the mosaics
still take centre stage.
 |
A Hunting Scene (left) and
the Nine Muses (right) |
What is amazing about these creations is
that they were what decorated the homes of the people who inhabited the period
about which I was writing.
The visual that these mosaics provided for me
and my written world was priceless.
Suddenly, my characters’ homes no longer
contained shabby dirt or terra cotta floors, or even plain marble. Triclinii,
peristylii and atrii came to life with the
mythological and natural scenes that decorated Roman homes.
But these mosaics at the Bardo, and
elsewhere, do not only depict the religious or fanciful aspects of belief.
 |
| A Gladiator and a Lion in the Arena |
More importantly to our knowledge, they
depict the everyday activities of people ages ago. We see people hunting,
fishing, tilling and bringing in the harvest. We see images of the food they
ate, the sports they watched and the heroes they worshiped.
These mosaics tell us so much about a world
that would otherwise be lost to us. Thanks to these masterpieces, we know more
about the buildings they decorated and the importance placed upon particular
rooms within private homes, public and religious spaces.
 |
| Champion Chariot Horses |
When I stepped out of the Bardo Museum into
the setting sunlight on a Tunis street, I felt as though I had been a guest at
sumptuous banquet in someone’s home, far off on the edge of the Empire. This
was not some flee-infested frontier region. No.
The Roman provinces of Africa Proconsularis
and Numidia yielded not only the oil, grain and garum upon which the Empire
depended, but also artistic treasures that have left a mark on time.
At the Bardo Museum, you can walk among
these treasured mosaics with many silent, sentinel statues as your fellow
guests.
If you ever get the chance to visit this place,
do so. You will not regret it, and the memory of what you see will linger with
you for years to come.
 |
| Gallery Statue |
 |
| Floor to Ceiling Displays |
 |
| The Poet Virgil |
