York Museums Trust Blog

(This blog was actually written some days ago, concerning the Hands on Archaeology day, but I haven’t been able to get on-line to post anything! So here it goes, days late:)

There’s nothing like a day at work, elbows deep in fish guts. OK, elbows might be a bit of an overstatement, perhaps up to my fabric bracelet (collected from festivals) is the more appropriate amount of guts tackled today. I think I will smell best of everyone tonight! But anyway, there was a Hands on Archaeology theme at the museum today, which made the day more out of the ordinary, after the general confusion of me just returning from a holiday and not having a clue about the admission prices for this shindig. It was fantastic, and should definitely be repeated. Walking around the museum, whilst taking the scenic route to the loos’, I saw stalls with colleagues presenting various interesting things, from iron to jewels to fabrics to yes – fish.

I stayed the first time to explore the fish thing further. I am somewhat of an animal rights lunatic, though I do eat fish, but have this strange fascination for icky and gooey wonderfully smelly dead animals. Or perhaps not all animals. It mainly scales down to fish. My family owns a cottage in the Finnish archipelago, and I spent many summer weeks there during my childhood gutting fish. Catching and gutting fish were the most interesting parts of the summer. And here I had fish in front of me, and 6000 year old flint to gut it with. I’ve never gutted anything with 6000 year old tools. So I scratched a bit of the scales off before feeling that perhaps I should return to front desk. But I returned later to gut a whole fish, and cutting off its head, alongside a small child doing the same, being equally excited by the yucky texture. It’s amazing that a piece of flint, basically a piece of rock that has been in the ground for six millenniums can still de-scale, gut and decapitate a fish. I found it somewhat challenging but by no means impossible, and it left me sort of proud of my work. Out then to the Roman style cooker in the Museum Gardens to cook the little beast, and then to be consumed. I felt like a true warrior. Except that I didn’t actually catch and killed the fish. I merely played with its carcass. But it was very, very cool.

And then there was some fish left over, that I got to take home. Even though I think the smell will never leave, this was a really fun day. And we, in my house, will be well fed too.

My first day back in the office and i’m introduced to a new member of the team who was happily sat on my colleague’s desk. I  must admit that working in museums is definitely not dull and boring as you never know what tomorrow will bring! Today i met Yorkie-saurus! Yorkie for short -  is a colourful looking remote control robotic dinosaur that was created by the fabulous Science team at the Yorkshire Museum - he is fantastic!  He moves forward, backward and can also swivel. I’ve been informed that Yorkie will be making his appearance to visitors next week at our Dino-robots Family Challenge Day. Visitors including me (during my lunch break of course) - will be given the chance to build and name their own remote control dino-robot and  enter their creation in our special dino race - it’s going to be fun. Can’t wait for lunchtime next Wednesday!

The first time I met Prince Philip he wished me a very Merry Christmas. It was a hot day in mid summer. Fast forward a few years and I see him in the flesh again, also in mid summer but much less hot and decidedly muddier. He was at the Yorkshire Show with his wife, The Queen. They had come to celebrate the show’s 150^th anniversary - a century and a half of showing agriculture at its best.  And, just like the Queen, York Museums Trust decided to mark this occasion as well, only without the blue hat. For three days a team of enthusiastic (very enthusiastic seeing as though we were up at 6am) staff members and volunteers manned a variety of activities, crafts and artefacts looking at the history of farming. More than 6,000 people came to learn things such as what the Roman’s brought to Yorkshire and how to squash a rat Victorian style. A map of where the women in the Land Army were based in Yorkshire created many nostalgic trips back to a time when they looked after land. Many city girls had never seen a cow before, but a lot stayed after the war, some as newly weds.  Gaby’s psychedelic horses caught the eye of passers by, and a life-sized milkable cow with milk bottle ears provided ample entertainment for children while their parents chewed the cud. For many the big draw was the incredible model of a steam engine and thresher. With its attention to detail and intricate design it was a labour of love for its creator. It was no surprise that it literally stopped people in their tracks, especially those who had worked on life sized versions in the past. And it was the object where most often roles were reversed, with the visitor very politely informing staff what did what.  Although I didn’t get to meet the Queen and Prince Philip, some of the Trust’s staff did. Amy, Lucy, dressed as a milk maid, Christine, dressed as a land girl and Jim dressed as a Monk/Obi Wan Kenobi, were all invited to meet her majesty, and very nice she was too apparently. But not a mention of festive tidings from Philip.

The good old NHS arrived in the Kitchen Studio in the Castle Museum on Friday and started dispensing a bit of history and some lovely Rock Cakes.  I managed a couple and they kept me in good health all the way home.

We also had Nurses in the Costume Studio demonstrating how to make a bed the proper way.  They even brought a proper hospital bed in for the day.

Our web presence has grown a little more; we’ve been experimenting our new Flickr account. We’ll try to restrict it to good quality photos and strong images.

It’s been there for a while, but it was really kicked into life with the Grand Tour in York’s own Flickr Set.  Since then we’ve begun adding content for each of our sites, plus a special History of York Set that’s looking really good already.

There’s even a taster in the box a the bottom of this page…..

Agate is a semi-precious stone often used in jewellery. It is a form of the mineral Quartz, known as Chalcedony. It is only known as agate when it is banded as shown by this specimen. There is almost always a difference in colour and translucency between individual bands. This example is a polished, oval flat cabochon and is 33 carats in weight.

The name agate comes from an occurrence in the river Achates (now the Drillo) in the South west of Sicily The old term of achates does not quite equate with our modern agate, since other minerals, including some alabasters, were also known as achates.

Agate is by no means uncommon in Britain and is known from several localities. Scotland in particular is known for particularly high quality agates. In Southern Perthshire, the Ochil Hills have produced many fine agates in the past and continue to do so today.

Info. by - Stuart YORYM : 2006.107