York Museums Trust Blog

Most people would think of this as ‘stained glass’, but would you believe it’s actually painted? It’s one fragment from a collection of pieces acquired from excavations. This medieval glass has survived really well in unfavourable conditions. Much buried medieval glass decays terribly.

Looking at the intricacy of this single piece of glass, you can just imagine the hours of work which must have gone into a whole window. Church windows would have been a truly impressive sight to the vast majority of the population. Most windows would have been a shutter covering a hole in the wall!

Info. by – Katherine

YORYM : 2007.6077

click for a better view

This is a domino-sized piece of soapstone engraved in reverse with the words “Julius Alexander’s salve for irritations”.

It is one of only 60 such stamps world-wide. Cosmetic branding was as important to the Romans as it is to us today. This stamp ensured that people knew they were getting ‘ the real McCoy ‘ and not some forgery.

It was found on the Mount by the Dickinsons – a farmer and his nephew who worked land on which the Mount School now stands. They worked very closely with local archaeologist Peter Wenham in collecting and plotting Roman objects from their land.

Their collection of artefacts now forms part of the archaeological collections at the Yorkshire Museum.

Information by – Andrew Morrison

YORYM 2006.2878

I’ve had my head buried in the History of York development site for the last month or so, trying to get enough material on there to justify going public.

I’ve learned all sorts of interesting stuff in the process, but my favourite nugget of info so far has to be this: Viking Male Grooming

The latest from our curatorial bulletins, this is from the Military Historian, Keith:

This chocolate tin was presented by the Mayor and Sheriff of York to a soldier from York for Christmas 1914. This act of generosity, presenting all servicemen from York with a Christmas gift, was helped by the Sheriff being Oscar Rowntree, of the chocolate firm. What makes this tin very special is that the recipient resisted temptation and kept the contents intact. To the servicemen this was a very welcome gift. Most were not regular soldiers or sailors having joined the forces in the patriotic fervour of war breaking out in August. Many were away from their home city for the first time.

The realities of modern warfare were beginning to reveal themselves – such as static trench warfare, mass artillery bombardments, submarine warfare and use of aeroplanes. The promise of being ‘home by Christmas’ was not happening. The arrival of the gift was a real boost. This is shown in letters to the Mayor’s office now held in the Local History Section of York Library. Many recipients wrote to thank the Mayor and Sheriff for their gift, some wrote asking for more! Once the true nature and scale of the war was realised such gestures became rare. There was no similar gift in 1915.

This is from our internal ‘Collections Snapshot’ by Katherine:

Sometimes objects which don’t make the best photographs are really exciting. This Roman glass vessel is around 2000 years old, made of really thin and delicate glass and yet is virtually complete. It’s unusually large for this type of vessel, and we’re not sure what it was used for – perhaps for cosmetics, or oil, or even offerings. After being placed into a grave, it was not disturbed until the railway station was built at the end of the 19th century.

York St John University is a relative youngster in York’s cityscape – it’s only been around since 1841. I was still really pleased yesterday when they agreed to join in with our History of York internet project. The university will soon be uploading pictures and info about the various stages of its history to the new site.