~theguardian-world | Bookmarks (13)

Day-trippers will have to pay €5 to visit Italian city under scheme designed to protect it from excess tourismAuthorities in Venice have been accused of transforming the famous lagoon city into a “theme park” as a long-mooted entrance fee for day trippers comes into force.Venice is the first major city in the world to enact such a scheme. The €5 (£4.30) charge, which comes...

Watchdog examining claims key details have not been disclosed about altar tablets that museum is facing calls to returnThe information watchdog is investigating the British Museum over claims it has been overly secretive about some of the most sensitive items in its collection – a group of sacred Ethiopian altar tablets that have been hidden from view at the museum for more than 150...

From expensive rent to efforts to keep up with fashion, a young man’s missives on display in Cumbria are relatable to todayWhen Ben Browne set off on horseback from his small village in the north of England for the bright lights of London in 1719, his concerns were not so different from those of today’s young people. Mainly: please send money, everything is so...

A collection of more than 7,000 letters will form a publicly accessible digital archive that offers a window to the past In the week that Ireland turns ­everything green and celebrates its diaspora, a new online archive has given voice to the human cost paid by generations of emigrants.More than 7,000 letters from emigrants to North America spanning four centuries have been collected and...

Instrument was adapted, translated and corrected by Muslim and Jewish users in Spain, north Africa and ItalyAlmost exactly a year ago, Federica Gigante was preparing a lecture and searching the internet for a portrait of the 17th-century Italian nobleman and collector Ludovico Moscardo when an altogether different image caught her eye.The historian’s gaze soon snagged on a photo of a metal disc with a...

Factories, nightclubs, lifesavers and pigeon-fanciers to be celebrated in films and community storytellingStories of an old bacon factory in Wiltshire, a rollerskating hotspot in Birmingham and a pigeon fanciers’ enclave in West Yorkshire are to be celebrated as part of an attempt to preserve England’s working-class heritage.A beloved north-west nightclub, a London pub that helped launch the careers of 1970s and 80s pop and...

Mati Diop, the director of Dahomey, which charts the restitution of 26 objects to Benin, says the tiny number involved is ‘humiliating’The first major return of looted treasures from Europe to Africa in the 21st century has left a lingering feeling of humiliation because of the lack of follow-up action, a French-Senegalese film-maker who accompanied a hoard of artefacts on their journey from Paris...

Chilean social media users target institution, forcing it at one point to close comments on postsThe British Museum is tackling an influx of social media trolls from Chile, who have flooded the museum’s Instagram posts calling for the return of a moai statue, one of the stone monuments from Easter Island.The museum has two moai, which were taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by...

Antiquities authority drops proposal for Menkaure pyramid after review prompted by international outcryEgypt has scuttled a controversial plan to reinstall ancient granite cladding on the pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest of the three great pyramids of Giza, a committee formed by the country’s tourism minister said in a statement.Mostafa Waziri, the secretary general of the supreme council of antiquities, announced the plan last month,...

Lifesize replica of 70-metre work, which cost museum £16,000, was part of sale of late drummer Charlie Watts’s estateIn 1872, a photographer from the South Kensington Museum – now the Victoria and Albert – travelled to France to take pictures of the Bayeux tapestry, the most famous piece of medieval art in the world.Photography was in its infancy and the images of the 70-metre...

Historians analysed dyes in the 16th-century Glen Affric tartan, found in a peat bog, to recreate the true coloursThe oldest known piece of tartan ever found, which was discovered in a peat bog, has been recreated by experts.Uncovered about 40 years ago in a bog in Glen Affric in the Highlands, the tartan underwent rigorous testing last year to confirm it was the oldest...

Three-year €2.1m fund will prioritise former colonies of the two countries and could lead to return of itemsGermany and France will jointly spend €2.1m (£1.8m) to further research the provenance of African heritage objects in their national museums’ collections, which could prepare the ground for their eventual return.A three-year fund, with contributions of €360,000 a year by each country, was launched in Berlin on...

Then PM was advised to ‘encourage’ British Museum to agree long-term loan in return for Greek support Tony Blair considered a “long-term loan” of the Parthenon marbles to Greece in the hope of support for a London 2012 Olympic Games bid, newly released documents reveal.Twenty years before Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, over the ownership question of...