Byzantium at the Royal Academy (25 October 2008-22 March 2009) was the one exhibition I was most looking forward to this year. My expectations were conditioned by my innate interest in Byzantine cultures as well as the chance to see new things and somewhat also to see how the misconceptions or myths about Byzantium were to be corrected. I was so very disappointed that it has taken me until now to be able to write sensibly about it without getting unduly cross and also in the hope that reflection might moderate my response. I'm afraid it hasn't. What an opportunity missed. This exhibition comes after a major Blockbuster at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 'The Glory of Byzantium' a decade ago but still resonating now (1997), against which background the RA exhibition ought to have excelled. There has been a lot of excellent scholarship of late, on Byzantine subjects, not least new archaeological evidence and interpretations which have looked beyond the great empire's traditional boundaries. Compared with even popular perceptions of the Middle Ages in the UK, knowledge of Byzantium is hazy and sketchy in this country, to say the least. I don't think the word is ever mentioned in the History curricula of UK schools and I think that it is taught at degree level in a minority of history and archaeology programmes. Students and scholars tend to come to Byzantine studies through chance, and I suspect that the majority of scholars in this country tend to study Byzantium through the lens of art history, although fascination with its economic, social and political developments is not lacking and the interplay between all of these is fast becoming the modus operandi of many medievalists. Here was a chance for the RA and the exhibition curators to really dig deep, to not just aim for borrowing objects which had never been seen in the UK before, but to really give to the public a meat and bones taste of Byzantine culture and its changes through its 1000 year history. Instead what we got were disjointed, unfinished narratives, for example, using the empire's 'great rulers' as hooks, such as Constantine the Great and Justinian (what about the others?) A wonderful series of Byzantine coins was a great idea to present the empire's long chronology and yet a huge gap was evident in the later two-thirds of the seventh century, precisely when significant political change was going on, such as the defeat of the Byzantine imperial army by Italian Lombards and the loss of large amounts of territory on the Italian peninsula. This was big news at the time, and should have been again. No explanation was provided for this gap (I know there are coins from this period which could have been used, the British Museum has fine examples). Then we had a puzzling progression through 'Iconoclasm', 'At Court', 'At Home', 'At Church', 'Icons' and lip-service to the empire's cross-cultural connections with 'the West', in addition to 'Beyond Byzantium' (on the kinship between Russian, eastern and Greek orthodoxies) and finally 'Sinai' (as pilgrimage site). No progressive intellectual/academic publisher worth their salt would allow a book to be written in this way so why should we endure an exhibition which compartmentalises the past in such an anachronistic manner? 'At Home' was verging on the offensive-offensive to the many scholars who have worked hard to correct sloppy and two-dimensional interpretations of art/objects-with an odd admixture of ceramics, ceremonial jewellery, garments and descriptions of their homes: "Dwellings in cities tended to be poorly constructed with small, mean rooms, the living quarters upstairs [sic]. Houses in the country were generally equally humble, although wealthy landowners in town and country would have inhabited grander homes with painted walls and the best furniture.... ...Both men and woman wore ostentatious golden body adornments such as bracelets, torques, earrings, necklaces and breast chains." So in their awful, dreadful houses, they sat around in their finery including medallions, chains, large earrings and bracelets all in near pure gold and encrusted with jewels. Yes, that makes perfect sense. Such description, albeit in the basic leaflet a visitor receives upon entry, is obviously lacking at best, and puerile at worst. I actually cannot face going through the many other aspects of interpretation that I found problematic suffice to say that I really do not think that anyone with little or no knowledge of Byzantium would have left that exhibition with anymore of an enlightened idea about its many cultures. If anything, I think it would have reinforced the prejudices that the organisers may have wished to dispel. Finally, I must say a word on both the design and display. I was a little shocked that precious and fragile textiles (which admittedly for me were the highlight) many silk and linen, were placed under full spot lights and yet masonry and metalwork, which we know is more robust under exhibition lights, were so much in shadow. I was particularly concerned for a beautiful linen garment, supposedly belonging to a child, excavated from Egypt. Hope it's gone home in a suitable condition. The design generally, was poor. Those who had also been to 'Making History. Antiquaries in Britain 1707-2007' at the RA, and who, like me, enjoyed the way things were displayed, all constraints considered, would have been disappointed with the Byzantium designers. The graphic panels were poorly laid up (and in many cases not very well written) the font type and size were wrong, there were too few labels (do we all have to use audio tours?) or accompanying object lists and much of it (if you didn't have an audio guide) was guess-work. I visited on a pre-booked ticket for a late Sunday afternoon. I had thought the point of pre-booking was to avoid over-crowding. However on arrival (20 minutes early) I was waved in with anyone and everyone else. One had to queue to see most of the tiny exhibits, one by one. How could I contemplate the beauty of some of the manuscripts, for example, when I was being loomed over by great big oafs more interested in ticking off each object one at time? Of course, this aspect of my experience did not help my mood but it does not affect my assessment of it. The papers generally gave Byzantium a good press, and there is no doubt that some of the artefacts were evocative enough to arouse curiosity and wonder on their own. The response from intellectual and academic Byzantinists was cooler, as admittedly, is often the case with such broad-brush exhibitions. However, there was something about this exhibition which I feel I cannot defend in the way I would about other exhibitions which are often unfairly criticised for their simplicity or choice of objects or interpretation. Two things, notwithstanding my criticisms above, I felt were unacceptable. First, albeit that the exhibition catalogue was a collaboration, there seemed to be no such collaboration in the actual interpretation in the exhibition galleries. It felt like it was one person's outmoded view of how Byzantium should be seen and more importantly, what should be seen. Secondly was the sensation that I was left with after leaving the exhibition. I always hope to leave a museum with a sense of thoughtfulness about what I have just seen, whether I am knowledgeable in the subject or otherwise. I want to feel good about what I saw and I want to feel somewhat enlightened or entertained or in some way reflective. Instead I felt deep disappointment and more than a little cheated. I expect many visitors who enjoy exhibition visiting base their decision on whether they liked what they saw or didn't like what they saw, on this feeling too. It's what we take away from such experiences and how we think or talk about it afterwards that makes the difference between an exhibition that's done its job and one that hasn't. I don't think this one has, at least not for me.