PARIS, France -- The almost 1,000-year-old Bayeux Tapestry will not be hung again once it returns to France from a temporary exhibition in Britain, with the masterpiece set to be displayed on a table instead, France’s culture minister announced Friday. The fragile 68-metre (224-foot) tapestry went on display -- horizontally -- in London in September after being transported on loan from its home museum in Normandy where it has been hung since the 1980s. Culture Minister Catherine Pegard wrote Friday that it “will be displayed along its entire length on an inclined table, both to better preserve it and to offer a better visiting experience” once it returns next year. The Bayeux Museum in northern France is undertaking renovation work during the best-selling exhibition of the tapestry at the British Museum which has been attended by around 100,000 people. Writing on X, Pegard said that “the trip to London hasn’t altered anything” and the decision to change the display conditions had been “been under consideration for about ten years.” But prominent far-right lawmaker Jean-Philippe Tanguy claimed on X that the decision not to hang the tapestry was a “scandal,” adding without evidence that it had been “damaged during its transportation.” Some art conservation experts had voiced concern about the risk of transporting the extremely fragile relic to London. Two broken threads were observed after the operation, but it remained “in the same state,” Pegard said in September. While its exact origins are shrouded in mystery, the tapestry depicts the 1066 Battle of Hastings, the start of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England with his Norman army. It is widely thought to have been made in England before being transferred to Bayeux. “We will see the Tapestry again in a new museum, with a new presentation. That is something to be welcomed,” Pegard wrote on Friday.
