York Museums Trust Blog

Victoria Adams, a newly-arrived archaeologist at the Yorkshire Museum, describes what it was like to be on the scene when a skeleton was found by builders…

It is claimed that you can’t dig a hole in York without disturbing archaeology, and that certainly seemed true recently when human remains were unearthed beneath the foundations of the Yorkshire Museum.

Contractors were excavating a drain as part of the museum redevelopments, when they uncovered part of a human jawbone and cranium.  A watching brief was in place, so archaeologists quickly came on the scene to record the exact location and relative position of the bones. The remains were then removed to a safe location, allowing the contractors to continue work.

I was asked along to ‘hold the end of the tape-measure’ and accurately plot the find-site, for what we thought was just a few pieces of bone. Excavating a bit lower, more of the skull was unearthed, then the ball of the hip bone amongst the skull fragments, so we concluded that the skeleton was disarticulated, or jumbled up.  Lower still though we found the arms, ribs, and spinal column all in situ, with a large Victorian pipe cutting across where the pelvis and legs should have been. It appears that the historical builders were somewhat unconscientious, and on discovering human bones just threw them out of the way!

The skeleton may be that of a medieval Christian, as it was deliberately laid out to face east in the eventuality of waking up on Judgement Day. If so, he or she is likely to be associated with St Mary’s Abbey, the ruins of which surround and continue under the museum.

However to add to the intrigue, large fragments of Roman ceramics were found immediately above and below the bones. These may have been disturbed when the grave was dug in medieval times. Or this may be Roman grave, Christian or otherwise!

An osteoarchaeologist is currently examining the bones to determine age, gender and any other information about the individual’s life and death.  If the pathology is interesting then they may be carbon14 tested, to accurately determine the age of the bones. Eventually the skeleton will be respectfully reburied.

Does the Yorkshire Museum have any other skeletons hidden in the water-closet?! Quite probably, as many people were buried in the church and grounds of the medieval abbey.  Excavation destroys archaeological contexts, and analytical processes are continually developing, so it is better to leave sites undisturbed if possible.

So yes, it is quite likely that more bodies will come to light in the future. That’s certainly something to think about as you eat your picnic in the Museum Gardens.

Andrew Morrison, our Curator of Archaeology, begins a series of blogs about the £2m transformation of the Yorkshire Museum.

What’s our greatest problem at The Yorkshire Museum? The answer is obvious, isn’t it: we’re just too great.

That may sound like a boast – in fact, let’s face it, it is a boast – but it is the simple truth. There’s just too much important stuff and just too many fantastic stories for a provincial museum of medium size to tell.

Our greatest strength is, of course, the same thing.

Allow me to take a minute to explain just what we’ve (that ‘we’ includes you, naturally) got in the Yorkshire Museum.

We’re a science and natural history museum with one of the most historically important collection of fossils in Europe, the custodians of evidence which helped lead to Darwin’s breakthrough on natural selection.

We’re a Roman history museum with key artefacts crucial to the understanding of the Romans in Britain. The great emperor Constantine was proclaimed right here in York. We have the proof. We have the last evidence of the legendary, supposedly vanishing Ninth legion, rare statues of the Gods and a whole lot more.

We’re a museum of medieval history beyond compare in the country outside of London. The remains of the abbey, destroyed by King Henry VIII’s men, actually make up part of our building and we have the most complete and important Saxon helmet in the Kingdom.

Add to that the fact that the building is Grade I and of vast historic importance (we’re one of the oldest purpose-built museums in the world). Oh and don’t forget we’re a seat of learning with visiting academics from around the world beating a path to our doors.

So a legacy and a collection that is the pride of Yorkshire. How can you fail to present all of that? Very easily.

It can’t be confused, it can’t be boring and we have to entertain and inform both 80-year-old granddad and that five-year-old on his or her first ever trip to a museum. We want this museum to confirm its rightful place as one of York’s premier attractions, right up there with the Minster. We want the wow factor and we want to brand the museum as the one venue with the whole story of York and Yorkshire.

All of which sounds a bit grand when you find yourself knocking out plasterboard, breathing dust and wondering about the cup-of-tea factor while negotiating with the skip company and lending your mind to where that moth-eaten but much loved old stuffed bear is going to go.

We’d love you to join us and follow our progress via these blogs.

NB: Our thanks to Peter Williamson who bought ‘Swampy’ (see previous blog) for £69 for his dinosaur daft and animal crazy nephew, Jack, aged 11.

I’ve known my mate Swampy for a long time now and I love him.

Of course loving him wasn’t going to stop me from smashing him up with a sledgehammer and chucking him in the skip.

In fact it was only the gentle persuasion of the York Museums Trust Media and Public Relations Department (ie Lee) that led to my sticking him on eBay (current bidding £56).

‘Swampy’ is a plaster and fibreglass model of a 5ft amphibian which roamed the tropical – yes tropical – swamps of Yorkshire 312million years ago.

He was a key feature in Yorkshire Museum for well over a decade and so was viewed by well over a million people. Nearly every child and a fair proportion of grown-ups felt the need to pat his head.
 
 The reason for Swampy’s existence was to help explain what ‘Yorkshire’ would have been like in the Upper Carboniferous period, a time when many of the coal seams in Britain were formed.

Emerging from a swamp, devouring a fish, this eye-catching amphibian performed his job in our old museum well – though I lost count years ago how many people wrongly thought he was a crocodile.
 
He just won’t fit into our planned new family friendly and fun Extinct gallery which will boast a real dinosaur trackway, tell the story of supposedly extinct creatures that returned ‘from the dead’ and modern interactive activities.

Swampy is just one of our characters and I’ll be telling you of others in the course of these blogs. Not that we’re going to be too sentimental. They have to do a job and fit into our new museum – or it’s the sledgehammer and the skip.

Can you save Swampy from this fate? He makes a good educational tool and he’s quirky and fun. Just don’t call him a crocodile.

This lovely armchair is made from oak and was made in one of a group of workshops operating in the Leeds area at this time. The decoration is Elizabethan in style and so perhaps a bit old fashioned for the time of its production. The chair was probably made for one of the new breed of Yorkshire gentlemen whose fortunes were based in the affluent towns of the West Riding, at the centre of the English clothing industry.

This group of furniture makers produced various forms at this period including chairs, chests and cupboards. Their work is characterised by its extremely good workmanship and decoration.

The distinctive design features of these workshops which can be seen in this chair include the double-scrolled pediment crest with earpieces, and the carved back panel with the diamond motif complete with pennant-like terminals.

Lady Cockburn and Her Three Eldest Sons

Yorkshire’s Tourism Event of the Year!

That was the accolade given to the Trust’s ‘Grand Tour in York‘ at Welcome to Yorkshire’s awards ceremony at the Royal Armouries last night.

It was a good night for York all round as the Theatre Royal and National Railway Museum also won awards. And to top it all, prizes were handed out by our very own Archbishop, Dr John Sentamu, who only seemed to lose concentration a little when Pub of the Year was announced (Ye Old Sun Inn at Colton, in case you’re interested).

Every recession brings new opportunities, though usually for scrap merchants, insolvency practitioners and other scavenger occupations. York, England, has opened up some of those opportunities to the wider creative community.

Like most places York’s retail economy has been hit hard lately. The sight of dingy, empty shops is a real problem for a city that relies on its picturesque streets to attract more than 4m visitors a year.

A call went out for ideas and York Museums Trust responded with ‘Windows of Opportunity’. The thinking was: we want to change how these shops look but it’s very tricky to get permission to work inside them, so let’s just work with the surface. Vinyl was our solution. We would cover them up with giant, printed vinyls, like the ones advertising the new exhibition at the Castle Museum.