The Tansy beetle

We’re really excited to be working with the Tansy Beetle Action Group (TBAG) to help protect and understand this iconic York species.

The Tansy beetle is a bright green, flightless leaf beetle. It’s named after the Tansy plant that it eats and lays its eggs on. It used to be more widespread across the UK, but is now only known along the banks of the River Ouse near York. The species is endangered worldwide.

TBAG work to protect the Tansy beetle and research what it needs to survive. One thing they have learned so far is that the beetles can’t find new clumps of Tansy if these are more than 200m away. If the Tansy clump a population of beetles lives on is destroyed or flooded and there isn’t another one close by the population can be wiped out.

The Tansy plant

To prepare for our beetle colony we have planted Tansy and other plants, including Water mint and Sneezewort, in three 2m² square beds.

We’re hoping to introduce the beetle next Spring. This will extend its range and give our visitors an opportunity to see and help protect it.

We’ll be working with volunteers to maintain and monitor the Tansy beds. If you would like to help, please contact Fiona Burton, our Volunteers Manager, at fiona.burton@ymt.org.uk

Our gardeners preparing the Tansy beds...

Gaining independence from the Crown meant that York could regulate its own affairs, collect its own taxes and even appoint a mayor.  This paved the way for the success that was to flourish here over the following centuries.  In effect; it was the making of the city.

To commemorate the 800-year anniversary of York’s independence, we are planning a new exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, set to open in Easter next year, called 1212: The Making of the City.

Set amongst the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, our medieval gallery is perfectly placed to tell the story of medieval York and celebrate the people, places and events that have contributed to the city’s medieval heritage.

A painting of St William's Chapel on Ouse Bridge in York from York Art Gallery

The Yorkshire Museum’s medieval collections will still take centre stage, with the York Helmet, Middleham Jewel, Sapphire Ring and St William’s Shrine all given pride of place.

Original manuscripts and a fantastic array of paintings and works on paper from York Art Gallery will add real richness to the stories we will be telling. 

By flooding the exhibition with colour, sound and film, we hope to capture the vibrancy of the medieval city and celebrate the imagination, creativity and skill of its people.

Exploring the development and performance of York’s Mystery Plays will really help to bring the city’s medieval heritage back to life, and will complement the return of the York Cycle to the city.

These iconic medieval plays will be performed throughout August 2012 in front of the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, just outside the museum, and, along with our exhibition, are being mounted as part of the City of York Council’s York 800 celebrations.

So it’s all building up to look like another exciting year for the Yorkshire Museum and Museum Gardens, and as project leader for the exhibition, I’m really excited to be part of it.  We hope we can create something really striking and exciting for first-time visitors to the museum as well as providing fresh interest for our ‘regulars’.

More details will be revealed over the coming weeks and months as we finalise what will be going on show so watch this space for more exciting news.

In the meantime you can visit the York Mystery Plays 2012 website for more information on the performances, including booking details for tickets and advice on how to get involved.

This week’s picture is of a group of Coprinus comatus, the shaggy mane mushroom also known as “the lawyer’s wig”.

This mushroom is one of the easiest to recognise due to to shape, colour and the black ink it produces.

The photo is taken in the compost area where the mushrooms have been growing on a pile of rotting leaves – the perfect place as they like to grow in dung or very rich organic soil.

The mushrooms are self-digesting - after the spores have matured and been released, the gill tissue digests itself and begins to curl up allowing spores above this to be released. As part of this process the whole fruiting body turns into black ink. The ink was used to write with.

In the early growing stage this mushroom is edible but needs to be consumed within a few hours after picking.

This week the picture is of a Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus nitens ‘Shining Gem’). This tree has been severely damaged by frost/cold winds over the winter, but is now beginning to re-grow with new shoots from the stem.

This tree has his origin from South Eastern Australia,  and grows well in rich moist soil, preferably in a sheltered position. In Summer months Eucalyptus sheds its bark, instantly rolling up in large pieces.  The dead bark is hard and brittle.  This species, unlike other Eucalyptus does not coppice.  However when burnt in forest fires, it will regenerate by throwing out suckers from the main trunk – even from charred remains. 

Ben Turner, collections technician for York Museums Trust, explains more here:

If you’re a regular visitor to the gardens, you may have already noticed two lines of sarcophagi (or large stone coffins) appearing close to the medieval ruins of St Mary’s Abbey.

We’re just putting the final touches to some signs and labels explaining more about them after completing our research into their history.

It’s been some months since we first found three of them when we were clearing out one of the old museum stores.

Myself and Adam Parker were taken on back in December to undertake this work. Both of us have an archaeological background so it was fascinating to be able to look more closely at the Roman inscriptions on these huge stone objects.

Of the three we found there, two were originally found during excavations at the Castle Yard, in front of York Castle Museum, the other we’re not sure about.

We then moved several other sarcophagi to join them, which had previously been sited in the St Leonard’s Hospital ruins,  between the Museum Street gates and York Explore (the Central Library).

The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek , meaning "flesh-eating"

We have arranged them in two rows to represent the way the Romans arranged their sarcophagi, usually with a path running down the centre. Typically the Romans preferred to cremate their dead, but during the third century, burying the dead in sarcophagi like these became more fashionable.

They were usually made of stone, wood or even tile. Bodies were washed, anointed in oils and dressed formally for the funeral. Offerings of food and wine were often left beside the grave.

We hope you enjoy looking at them as much as we have enjoyed researching them. It’s certainly been interesting for me to see the museum-side of archaeology compared with the field archaeology I’d been involved with before.

This sarcophagus is highly carved and its inscription tells us it originally belonged to Julia Victorina and her four-year-old son, Constantius, and was commissioned by her husband, a veteran centurion called Septimius Lupianus.

This inscription on this sarcophagus tells us it was made for a woman called Aelia Severa, but when it was found in 1859 in York the remains of a man were found inside. The lid that was used was the tombstone of Flavia Augustina, which can now be seen on display inside the Yorkshire Museum.

This small one belonged to a child. Even though it is quite plain, the burial of a child in a stone sarcophagus signified he or she came from a wealthy family.

Ben Turner looks at one of the sarcophagi in the Museum Gardens

All those groups of tits that you have seen during the winter months will have split up.

In the Museum Gardens, pairs of Blue Tits and Great Tits are everywhere and if you keep your eyes peeled you may see a pair of Long-tailed Tits. They are one of the earliest birds to breed and create a fantastic domed, globular nest out of moss and leaves.

There are several Robins singing in the Museum Gardens and Dunnocks too. If you listen closely you may also be able to hear the wheezy rasp of a Greenfinch.

A pair of Sparrowhawks has also been seen indulging in a courtship flight. This picture of a Sparrowhawk grabbing its lunch in the Gardens was snapped by Alicia Stabler, one of our Garden Guides.

If you are walking in woodland you may hear the drumming of a Great-spotted Woodpecker. They do this rather than sing like other birds. 

If you do hear drumming pick up a piece of wood and try to emulate it by hammering it on a tree trunk in short rapid bursts. If you are lucky you could attract a territorial male that will think he has a rival to chase off.

Meanwhile, the first butterfly sightings of the year have already taken place in the Museum Gardens. A Brimstone has been spotted near our gardeners’ hut and I saw a Peacock flying out of the trees at the back of the Yorkshire Museum last week.

Spring is definitely on the way!

If you’re in York any evening until 02 November, make sure you see this truly impressive sound and light show in Museum Gardens.  I went to the opening event last week and, not having been involved in this city project, I had no idea what to expect. 

It was brilliant – in every sense of the word.  Huge moving projections glowed from the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey Church and the front of the Yorkshire Museum, each image appropriate to each building but timed to work together and with an evocative soundtrack.

There’s no charge, it runs from when it goes dark until about 11pm and it’s a great way to start or end an evening.  Not to be missed… 

(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.

For me the fun was to be had because I was one of the lucky members of staff who was able to go up to the roof of the Yorkshire Museum and throw eggs off it. It was really odd to be up there for the first time (it’s a little difficult to get to, and of course only employees with good reason to are allowed on the roof), to look down on people, and to be flinging away carefully prepared eggs. We had to throw the eggs far enough for them to stay away from the edge of the building and land on a target, but at the same time hope that a child wouldn’t be really disappointed if their egg hit too hard. One egg hadn’t been so well secured in a polystyrene cup and came flying out of it about half way down, smashing right into the middle of the target. The parachute gently followed it and came fluttering down all by itself… 

 We’re doing it all again tomorrow. I’m sure I can find the time to have fun throwing eggs off the roof  help out my colleagues with an important activity!