A hoard of jewellery and valuables found stashed away beneath a Colchester shop in 2014 is taking centre stage in an exhibition.

The British Museum is hoping to open its exhibition on Nero, who succeeded to the throne aged 16 in 54AD, next month.

It is billed as a fresh look at the Emperor, who is said to have killed his mother after an incestuous relationship with her, as well as killing his first and second wife and setting fire to Rome.

The exhibition opens next Thursday and runs until the end of October. 

The exhibition will feature more than 200 objects to question the traditional depiction of the “tyrant”, which is based on a “narrow range” of “brutally biased and partisan” sources from just after Nero’s death, curators said.

Items from the Fenwick Hoard, discovered in 2014 beneath the former Williams and Griffin store in Colchester High Street by Colchester Archeological Trust, will feature among 200 exhibits.

The trust believes the items of jewellery were part of a collection belonging to a wealthy Roman woman who lived in Colchester.

Read more >>> Roman treasure stashed beneath shop to feature in landmark exhibition

She is believed to have stashed the items under the floor of a house subsequently burnt to the ground during the Boudican Revolt in 61AD.

The collection is one of the finest of its type to have been discovered in the UK.

Delicate organic remains, including leather and wood, were also found, alongside bone fragments near to the house displaying signs of battle wounds.

The exhibition features more than 200 artefacts relating to Nero, including a marble bust and bronze figure of the emperor.

Francesca Bologna said most of the surviving unfavourable depictions of the emperor came from artists and historians who were seeking to not look like “usurpers” to the political establishment that replaced him after his death.

The project curator said “almost everything we know about Nero actually comes from stories, most of them lies, that are centuries old”.

Bologna added: “Ancient historians, whenever they wrote history, they always had a very clear goal in mind.

“They manipulated history to get through their message or idea or whatever they were trying to push.

“In Nero’s case, the point was all these historians’ sources were writing when a new dynasty came to power.

“So they would not look like usurpers, they had to depict the previous family and the last of them, which was Nero, in the worst possible light.”

To find out more visit www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/nero-man-behind-myth.