Archaeology Displays Update

Museum staff arranging metal objects ©Pitt Rivers Museum

The new archaeology displays in the Pitt Rivers Museum will be displayed by type of material, rather than by chronology or geography.  The objects for these displays have been selected and now the time has come to layout all the objects to determine their final positions in the cases.  Prof Dan Hicks was involved with the final selection, Technicians Alistair and Adrian advised regarding the placement of objects in the cases and Conservator Miriam recommended ways to support and protect the objects.

The run of 10 archaeological cases is 17 metres in length and so it is important to see the potential layout of the cases next to each other.  The team spent three days working through the the displays which will show archaeological objects made of stone, metal, bone, glass, ceramic, wood and textile.

This case contains examples of spindle whorls © Pitt Rivers Museum

We started with the stone case.  The PRM has over 10,000 archaeological objects; most of these are stone tools so we had a lot to choose from. The carved stone piece in the centre of the photograph is a fragment of limestone (1884.138.12) excavated by Lt. Gen. Pitt-Rivers himself from Caesar’s Camp near Folkstone.

A close up of objects made of wood © Pitt Rivers Museum

Organic material is less likely to survive in the archaeological record but the museum holds some interesting examples to display in the case.  This case contains an intriguing wooden mummy face (1890.25.3) from Ancient Egypt 3rd Intermediate period excavated by Flinders Petrie and a mystery wooden object, possibly a lock, from a bog in Aghabullogue, Ireland (1884.117.1).

A close up of textiles © Pitt Rivers Museum

Archaeological textiles pose a problem for the museum conservation team.  These textiles are fragile and vulnerable to UV light, high lux light levels and to museum pests.  The conservation and technical services departments are investigating methods to control light levels and protect the textiles on display.

A close up of objects made from bone © Pitt Rivers Museum

The bone case contains examples of bone, tooth, shell and horn.  This case contains many small objects.  During the layout we took the opportunity to test the case text.  We printed mock up labels and tried placing the labels along the side edges of the cases.

The Archaeology Stone case in situ © Pitt Rivers Museum

The first display was installed on the Upper Gallery in October 2016.  Keep an eye out for more appearing soon!

Madeleine Ding and Sian Mundell
VERVE Curatorial Assistants

Picking pots: an archaeology display layout

One of the first in the run of display cases of archaeology will focus on objects made of pottery from a variety of different cultures and historical periods.

The 80 or so longlisted objects, many retrieved from an off-site store, are catalogued by myself and Sian. We use a Filemaker collections database to add new information such as descriptions, measurements and photographs, and we physically assign accession numbers to objects where necessary.

Example of a database entry page for an object. Here, a Roman votive hand PRM 1896.15.28

Having photographs and measurements of objects is great, but the physical selection and layout process is crucial for helping to determine the organising schema of a display and to see if certain combinations of objects 'work' together - intellectually and visually. We brought around 80 objects to the session that included Project Curator Helen Adams, Curator for Archaeology Prof Dan Hicks, Curator for Americas Prof Laura Peers, and Heather Richardson, Head of Conservation, who checked that the objects were in a stable enough condition for display.

Museum staff select objects for the new pottery display © Pitt Rivers Museum

A mock-up of the display case measuring 100 cm x 50cm with a maximum height of 10 cm was created. Once all the pieces were discussed and the final pieces chosen, we positioned the pottery within the case to look at meaningful groupings and optimum positioning.

A mock-up case frame to help us think about layouts and groupings © Pitt Rivers Museum

It could be easy for archaeology displays to be, dare we say it, a little dull but we are really enthused by the variety of colour, shapes, cultures and techniques demonstrated in this selection. Prioritising complete objects over sherds and shards will hopefully enable the objects to speak for themselves and visitors will be able to appreciate both their form and function. Since the collections are concerned with world archaeology, not just European classical archaeology, we hope to be able to tell some new and unfamiliar stories, such as that of the Moche or Mochica civilisation of Peru (AD 100 - 800). Here is a Moche stirrup-spout jar in the form of a skeleton playing panpipes.

Ceramic stirrup-spout jar in form of a skeleton playing panpipes; 1947.7.14 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Now the Conservation team will work on the 36 pottery pieces to clean, stabilise and conserve them. Finally the Technical team will look at the pieces to see how they should be displayed in the case and create mounts to support them. Look out for the new display in the Upper Gallery later this year.


Helen Adams (VERVE Project Curator) and Madeleine Ding (VERVE Curatorial Assistant)

A Visit to the Store, the Museum's own 'Pottery Barn'

Sian and I recently visited the Museum's off-site store to identify objects for the new world archaeology displays. We had a longlist of interesting objects to search for since the run of cases will most likely be displayed by type of material, rather than by chronology or geography to maintain the Museum's typological approach to arrangements.

We started looking for pottery objects first as most of our pottery reserve collections are in the store, which will soon be undergoing a major move.

© Pitt Rivers Museum

'Angel Inn' mug, 1887.1.409
© Pitt Rivers Museum

The Museum's pottery collections (objects made from fired clay) include Egyptian faience ushabti figures, pottery tiles from India, Japanese wheel-turned stoneware, and – from closer to home – a glazed beer tankard from the Angel Inn on Oxford's High Street, now the University of Oxford's Examination Schools (left). 



Below is a terracotta 'plank' figurine, one of four such figurines from the excavations of Dr Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890) at Mycenae, Greece in the 1870s. It is thought to date to the Archaic period during the Iron Age (700-600 BC). You can read more about the Schliemann collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum here (Chapter 15.2.4).



 

'Plank' figurine, Mycenae, Greece PRM 1887.20.57 © Pitt Rivers Museum

The selected objects will be transported back to the Museum for inspection by the project team including Project Curator Helen Adams, Curator for Archaeology Prof Dan Hicks, and Interim Director and Curator for Americas Prof Laura Peers.

Packed 'bakers' trays ready for transporting © Pitt Rivers Museum

Madeleine Ding

VERVE Curatorial Assistant

Moving upstairs: archaeology

The VERVE: Need / Make / Use project has entered its third and final phase with new displays focusing on the world archaeology collections at the Museum. 

Ten desktop cases in the Upper Gallery of the Museum, currently filled with images of recent research projects, will be reutilised to demonstrate the variety and and richness of our archaeology collections. 

Upper Gallery © Pitt Rivers Museum

Since 2009, when an old display of archaeological material was removed from the west end of the Upper Gallery to make space for a new permanent display of firearms, the majority of the Museum's archaeological collections have been held in on- and off-site storage. So this presents an exciting opportunity to make them available to visitors, including many items that have never been on public display before.

To aid our selection process we have made a Correx® 'mock-up' of a desktop case, which we will take to our offsite store. This will enable us to quickly check if an object will physically fit within the case's dimensions and so prevent the unnecessary transportation of objects to the Museum that are too big.

A Correx® mock-up of a desktop case © Pitt Rivers Museum

With so many amazing objects to choose from we hope to make some great discoveries. One tool to help us and the curator in the search will be the recent publication, World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: A Characterisation by Dan Hicks and Alice Stevenson (2013), which has sought to scope and analyse the breadth and diversity of the collection, exploring more than 135,000 artefacts from 145 countries from the Stone Age to modern times. The book is available in open access form here. 

World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum (2013) 

We will keep you updated on our progress!

Sian Mundell and Madeleine Ding

VERVE Curatorial Assistants