Sydneyfan
09-27-2006, 04:22 AM
Now if we could just keep them here when we win them.....
WHEN Adam Chadwick, an English cricket enthusiast, arrives in Sydney next month he will bring with him what is almost certainly the most precious piece of carry-on luggage ever to arrive in Australia.
Handcuffed to his left wrist, in a purpose-built case, nestled in a heavily padded frame, will be a tiny urn - a cracked terracotta pot - standing just 10 centimetres tall, that once contained ladies' cosmetics, and now contains the Ashes - even if no one knows exactly what of.
For only the second time since they were awarded to the visiting English captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Victorian ladies in 1882, the symbol of cricket's most famous rivalry is returning to Australia.
The only previous visit was to Sydney to celebrate the bicentenary of European settlement in 1988, when the urn was displayed at the State Bank Centre in Phillip Street. Then, they were brought by Prince Charles, and handed to Bob Radford, a local cricket official, at the Qantas jet base before being taken into town with a police escort.
Security and safekeeping arrangements will be far stricter this time, said Beth Hise, curator of The Ashes Exhibition, which will run at the Museum of Sydney from October 21 until November 8 before going on a national tour.
"The Ashes were supposed to have come out in 2002, but conservation experts [at the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's in London] thought the urn was just too fragile to travel, after discovering cracks."
Though X-rays revealed the urn had been damaged and repaired many decades earlier, there were suggestions that further deterioration had occurred during the 1988 trip. Now fully restored and stabilised, The Ashes are coming home - but only with extraordinary care.
The case containing them will have its own separate business class seat on the flight from London. It will not leave the wrist of Mr Chadwick, the MCC museum curator, who will be the only person to handle the urn during its four-month stay in Australia. Arrangements are being made to clear it through customs, including paperwork covering materials, value and provenance, a 24 hour acclimatisation period at the museum and a detailed examination. Every scratch, stain and mark is noted and photographed. "It's rather like checking the condition of a rental car," said Matthew Jones, assistant curator. The display conditions - broadly 20 degrees, 50 per cent humidity, no more than 50 lux of light - are specified by the MCC, which will supervise the placing of the urn and its base in a purpose-built hydraulic, double-alarmed eight millimetre glass case.
In addition, a one metre gap will be fixed between the public and the case, which will also be policed by one or more security guards, depending on crowd numbers.
The Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist said last week: "To me, this is the history of cricket and to be able to see it this close is a very special moment indeed."
WHEN Adam Chadwick, an English cricket enthusiast, arrives in Sydney next month he will bring with him what is almost certainly the most precious piece of carry-on luggage ever to arrive in Australia.
Handcuffed to his left wrist, in a purpose-built case, nestled in a heavily padded frame, will be a tiny urn - a cracked terracotta pot - standing just 10 centimetres tall, that once contained ladies' cosmetics, and now contains the Ashes - even if no one knows exactly what of.
For only the second time since they were awarded to the visiting English captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Victorian ladies in 1882, the symbol of cricket's most famous rivalry is returning to Australia.
The only previous visit was to Sydney to celebrate the bicentenary of European settlement in 1988, when the urn was displayed at the State Bank Centre in Phillip Street. Then, they were brought by Prince Charles, and handed to Bob Radford, a local cricket official, at the Qantas jet base before being taken into town with a police escort.
Security and safekeeping arrangements will be far stricter this time, said Beth Hise, curator of The Ashes Exhibition, which will run at the Museum of Sydney from October 21 until November 8 before going on a national tour.
"The Ashes were supposed to have come out in 2002, but conservation experts [at the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's in London] thought the urn was just too fragile to travel, after discovering cracks."
Though X-rays revealed the urn had been damaged and repaired many decades earlier, there were suggestions that further deterioration had occurred during the 1988 trip. Now fully restored and stabilised, The Ashes are coming home - but only with extraordinary care.
The case containing them will have its own separate business class seat on the flight from London. It will not leave the wrist of Mr Chadwick, the MCC museum curator, who will be the only person to handle the urn during its four-month stay in Australia. Arrangements are being made to clear it through customs, including paperwork covering materials, value and provenance, a 24 hour acclimatisation period at the museum and a detailed examination. Every scratch, stain and mark is noted and photographed. "It's rather like checking the condition of a rental car," said Matthew Jones, assistant curator. The display conditions - broadly 20 degrees, 50 per cent humidity, no more than 50 lux of light - are specified by the MCC, which will supervise the placing of the urn and its base in a purpose-built hydraulic, double-alarmed eight millimetre glass case.
In addition, a one metre gap will be fixed between the public and the case, which will also be policed by one or more security guards, depending on crowd numbers.
The Australian cricketer Adam Gilchrist said last week: "To me, this is the history of cricket and to be able to see it this close is a very special moment indeed."