A live 'guided tour' of the major new Vikings exhibition at the British Museum, which will be broadcast to cinemas around Britain and later the world, is to feature a University of Aberdeen expert.
Professor Neil Price, from the University’s archaeology department, will add his insight to Vikings Live – a special look at the exhibition featuring the largest longboat ever discovered, along with a host of other treasures.
The event, which will be screened at 380 UK cinemas, will include a torch-lit ship burial in the museum’s forecourt and follows the success of last year’s Pompeii Live screening, which took nearly £500,000 at the UK box office.
Professor Price, who helped put the exhibit together and wrote the catalogue for the religion and ritual section, said: “The Vikings are always a popular subject of public fascination and this gives people around the world the chance to get up close to this exhibition in the company of experts.
“The key exhibit is the 37m longboat, which is the biggest ever excavated, and is absolutely enormous. The live show will probably allow viewers to get even nearer some of the artefacts than will be possible for those visiting the event in London.
“As it’s the first major Viking exhibition in 30 years, this is a chance to bring them to a new generation and is presented within the context of the latest research perspectives and ideas about them.”
The programme will be presented by TV historians Michael Wood and Bettany Hughes and broadcast on April 24 at 7pm.
In Aberdeen, the programme will be screened at the Union Square Cineworld and the Vue cinema in the city centre.