Fire and thread: Bayeux-inspired 'Game of Thrones' tapestry unveiled in France

LIFESTYLE. An exhibition offering a tapestry illustrating the events of hit HBO TV exhibit “Game of Thrones” opened in Bayeux, Normandy, on Friday - simply down the street from the museum where its eleventh century concept is housed.

The tapestry was created in Northern Ireland, one of the principal filming areas for the series. Around 30 stitchers labored for some 1,500 hours on the stretch of linen, which begins with King Robert Baratheon visiting the Starks in Winterfell

Some 87 meters (95 yards) later, it ends in hearth and blood with the final, controversial, scenes of the eighth season.

Depicting all that gore the use of jacquard threadwork used to be no longer easy, stated challenge chief embroiderer Valerie Wilson.

It would have been a mission that also confronted the medieval embroiderers, who created the famous 70-meter Bayeux tapestry to recount the invasion of England via William the Conquerer. The work brings to life scenes such as the 1066 Battle of Hastings, where Harold of Wessex is proven death with an arrow to the eye.

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“The ‘Game of Thrones’ tapestry references the Bayeux tapestry stylistically and in terms of some of the motifs that have been used and the way that the story unrolls in a linear fashion,” said Wilson.

The two tapestries also tackle a frequent theme, said Antoine Verney, chief curator of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum. “It’s whether we can justify violence to claim power,” he said.

The show was primarily based on the “Song of Ice and Fire” books by using George R.R. Martin.

The “Game of Thrones” exhibition in Bayeux runs from Sept. 13 to Dec. 31 at the Hotel du Doyen, on the website the place the Bayeux Tapestry itself was in the beginning displayed before its eventual go to the committed museum close by