Jet beads – YORYM : 2012.779.3.8

In October 2011 York Museums Trust received an exciting collection of Bronze Age objects excavated by a father and son in the pioneering days of post-war archaeology. David Lamplough, then a young boy, and his father William, a secondary school teacher and amateur archaeologist, carried out rescue excavations on Bronze Age barrows and occupation sites across North Yorkshire along with their friend John ‘Ronnie’ Lidster. There are several things about this unique collection that make it extremely interesting.

The collection

Lamplough artefacts in storage

So what’s in the collection? The bulk of the collection encompasses flint tools, reconstructed ceramic vessels and the cremated remains of individuals, but we also have a few, considerably less day-to-day objects. There are a series of worked bone artefacts, including a very rare scabbard hook and a fine pin. We also have a few fragmentary pieces of copper alloy that came from cremations as well as some jet beads.

Putting the objects in context

The accompanying paper archive is what give the objects their context and, as any archaeologist will tell you, context is the most important thing! William Lamplough’s records provide a crucial insight into archaeological practice in the 1950’s. As an amateur archaeologist he had no formal training, yet he meticulously recorded what he found at every site, seemingly adding to his archive and modifying it as more discoveries were made and new conclusions reached.

Along with these records is what might be described as a series of essays on the Bronze Age in Yorkshire and Britain in general. William writes extensively about subjects ranging from the palaeoenvironment (how the environment might have looked like in the past) to what the prehistoric cultures he was studying might have been like themselves. He quotes various contemporary scholars who were writing in the 1950s, but also draws on historical sources such as the Domesday Book and Gildas.

What’s next for the Lamplough collection?

The next logical step was to talk to the people who were around when all of this was happening, and to allow their experiences to contribute to our knowledge of this wonderful archive. David Lamplough agreed to being interviewed about his experiences of early archaeology. To me it seems that this will open up a whole conversation about the way that archaeology was practiced in the 1950s. Below is an introductory video from this interview, in which David introduces himself and gives us a bit of information about how he and his father found themselves digging on the moors.

Lamplough Collection Introduction from dtymt on Vimeo.

By blogging about this research, I am hoping to show just how organic a process this sort of endeavour is. Hopefully I will be able to delve deeper into the histories of the artefacts and perhaps into the way that David and his father (along with others who are mentioned in the archive) conducted archaeology in the 1950s, how they became interested in such an important subject, and how archaeology was perceived by the wider public before it became a formal science.

A bit about me

My name is Emily and, as a Masters student studying Digital Heritage at the University of York, I am primarily concerned with the dissemination of archaeological knowledge using digital media and other forms of narrative. I am currently on placement with York Museums Trust, working on this exciting project.

York Art Gallery is closed and we have launched our packed programme of events for the interim, until the transformed Gallery re-opens in 2015, writes Jenny Alexander, Assistant Curator of Fine Art.

We are collaborating with local artist, illustrator and general magpie, Mark Hearld, who is fresh from his wonderful exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

An exhibition of his illustrations from A First Book of Nature is currently on display in the Yorkshire Museum.

Mark is working with all of YMT’s collections to create new work and develop an exciting exhibition at York Art Gallery using our collections in fantastic new ways.

Over the next few months, Mark will be visiting the YMT stores, seeking inspiration (which is not hard to find) and generally getting very excited about the “stuff” that we have here.

Here he is at one of the social history stores enthusing over some carousel horses.

We will be tweeting and blogging over the next year with images and interesting discoveries and Mark will maybe even post the odd sketch as his new work develops. So stay tuned!

The doors of the Yorkshire Museum’s historic library were opened to the public for the first time today.

Museum guide Matt Buy and YMT volunteer Ana San Sebastian Blanco welcomed visitors into the room at the top of the museum which is usually closed off from public view.

The library was first established in 1823 by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS), which later went on to open the Yorkshire Museum itself.

It (together with some surrounding storage areas) now houses 42,000 books and journals  about the natural world and human history, many dating back to the 1800s and before.

Visitors can see the library and hear about its history by coming to one of our open afternoons on Tuesdays and Fridays (please check the Yorkshire Museum website for details).

Today was a very exciting day at work as I went to collect the Stillingfleet Boar Badge from conservation, writes Natalie McCaul, Curator of Archaeology.

The badge, which we were able to purchase earlier this year because of the generosity of the public, has been to York Archaeological Trust where conservation staff have worked hard to remove the dirt encrusted onto its surface.

Amazingly, cleaning has revealed all the intricate details etched onto the badge – the boar’s fur, its spiky spine and even its snout and trotters are now clearly visible, as are traces of the original silver-gilt surface.

It is clear that it was made by a very skilled craftsman, most likely for a wealthy supporter of King Richard III, since the white boar was his symbol.

Now that we can see it properly, we will be able to compare the Stillingfleet badge with other examples of boar badges from across the country. We are looking forward to researching the badge and being able to tell its story more fully in our new exhibition Capital of the North, which opens in February 2013.

Conservation of the boar badge was made possible by a generous donation from the Richard III Society, to whom we are very grateful.

James Eaglesfield looks back over an eventful year…

What an interesting year 2012 has been; a year that finishes with me temporarily employed by York Museums Trust.

In the preceding months there have been all manner of events in what has been a very exciting time for York and its residents.  York 800 has had it all - including unexpected double sporting successful for York City FC.

As a Digital Marketing volunteer for York Mystery Plays 2012, it is probably unsurprising that this remarkable project will be what I best remember the year for.  The combined forces of the York Museums Trust, York Theatre Royal, Riding Lights Theatre Company, and York Council – not to mention a few thousand volunteers and other local companies - produced an epic piece of theatre in a stunning location.

However, it won’t be the action that appeared on stage that will remain at the top of my mind, though it was certainly extremely impressive; it is the effect that the overall project had on me, the people involved and the wider community of York.

The amount of time and effort that people committed to ensure that the Mystery Plays were successful - which they undoubtedly were - was phenomenal.  The great thing is that that investment has not gone unrewarded as they have now formed friendships and bonds that look set to last a long time.

It also gave people a real sense of community and of belonging to something bigger then anything else in their normal, everyday lives.  There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t meet someone who was involved in the Mystery Plays or had some affiliation with it.  The Mystery Plays had a wonderfully wide reach, a reach that wasn’t just confined to the city walls.

Of course, the splendid setting made a lot of the magic too and many people will have been delighted to see a return to St Mary’s Abbey for a large scale, fixed stage production - it had been too long and hopefully the wait to return once again will not be so long this time.

The renewed interest in the York Mystery Plays must to be built upon and momentum maintained.  The city needs to throw its support behind keeping the Mystery Plays going, in all their forms - from the Waggons to huge events like that in 2012.  They give so much back to the people of York and add something more, if it were needed, for those visiting our wonderful city to enjoy.

There are moves afoot to establish a new supporters group for the York Mystery Plays so that is how I will be spending some of my time in 2013.  Aside from that, who knows what the future holds?  If 2013 is half as exciting as 2012, it’s going to be a fantastic year.

We’re delighted to be working with three students who won a recent competition to help us develop new museum exhibitions, writes Amy Parkinson, Learning Manager.

We challenged young people aged 16 to 24 to come up with new ideas for an exhibiton of toys at York Castle Museum and a new medieval exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum, in our Create&MakeItWork Challenge.

The competition culminated in a ‘pitching’ session at this year’s Create Your Future event in The Hospitium in the Museum Gardens.

Each finalist had to sell their ideas and outline how they would work.

We were very impressed with all the entries and very excited by the winning ideas.

The first winner was Florence Laino, an undergraduate student at York University, who came up with an idea for a Rainbow Teddy Bear Trail. This will be part of our new Toy Stories exhibition at York Castle Museum which will open in February.

Young visitors will be able to look for letters around the exhibition which spell out a word revealing the location of where our teddy bear is hiding.

The winners of the other category were Amy Ellis- Thompson, pictured above right, and Emily Murdoch, both doing Masters degrees at the University of York. Their idea was Fantasy Jousting, which is a touchscreen interactive featuring animated jousts, which  we are now developing with them.

Visitors to the medieval exhibition, which also opens in February, will be able to make their knights stronger by picking artefacts to help them in their fight and answering questions about them.

The Create Your Future event is an annual event which was in its fifth year. It aims to show young people what careers are available in the creative sector and the new Create&MakeItWork challenge went down well with the entrants who enjoyed taking part in a real-life task.

A third category in the challenge was to come up with an idea to make York more ‘dementia-friendly’ – this was won by Jayne Gledhill, also pictured above. Her idea will be put into action with GeniUS York, City of York Council and the Joseph Rowntree Trust.

The Create Your Future was promoted as part of York Business Week and Global Entrepreneurship Week and was subsequently awarded the GEW’s ‘Badge of Honour’  for being a ‘High Impact Event’.

To get involved in future Create Your Future events, contact Yvonne Emerson at NYBEP Ltd.

Student Oliver Fearon looks forward to our new medieval exhibition for 2013…
Hello! I’m Oliver and have been working on the new medieval exhibition that opens early next year. I’m currently studying for a Masters degree in History of Art at the University of York and have been researching some of the wonderful medieval objects housed in the collections at the Yorkshire Museum. Here are some details from my research and a sneak preview of exciting things to come.…

In February 2013 we’ll be re-displaying our medieval gallery with a new exhibition called Capital of the North. The exhibition will tell the story of medieval York, from the Anglians to the Tudors, using some of the most iconic and well-known objects in the country.

In particular, I’ve been researching medieval objects with a saintly theme. Come in February and meet St. William the medieval patron saint of the city! Explore his two shrines and discover the special connection he shared with Edward I and the archbishops of York Minster.

The images of the early shrine show how the saint inspired knights, kings but also ordinary members of the public who sought cures and assistance from the saint. St. William was also a controversial figure in the Later Middle Ages; in February you can discover how his later shrine was caught in the middle of a struggle with the usurper king Henry IV and a murdered Archbishop!

My research has also focussed on objects associated with St. Barbara and St. Christopher and what they meant to the citizens and pilgrims of York. The famous female saint makes an appearance on a beautiful gold ring. When we see you in February you’ll be able to see how the ring worked in the lives of everyday people. They believed that rings with the images of the saints on would keep them safe from harm especially on long journeys.

Our St. Christopher Plaque demonstrates the importance that saint’s guilds had in the city and people would often wear them as badges to show their membership. These guilds would often help with the upkeep of the city and contributed towards the town’s social welfare.

Stay tuned for more of my research….

Six of our finest museum and gallery staff  have cast down their razors during the month of November to grow some very impressive moustaches.

York Museums Trust’s Lee Clark, Chris House, Geoff Hutchinson, Adam Parker, Jon Peters and Graham Thorne joined the annual Movember campaign to raise funds for research into men’s cancers.

So far, the team have raised £323 and would love to get to £500 by the end of November.

They got together today to have their photo taken in the Yorkshire Museum next to Mars, the Roman God of War, who has also been taking part in the campaign.

If you agree they’ve produced a superb crop of facial hair,  you can donate to the team here.

Thank you!

Over the summer, as part of the York Mystery Plays, a raffle was drawn with many fabulous prizes, writes Adam Parker, Curatorial Assistant for Archaeology.

One such prize was the chance to be a Curator for a Day (for the prize winner plus up to three others) with the staff at the Yorkshire Museum. The idea being that the prize-winners would receive hands-on experience of museum collections and get a taste of day-to-day life as a curator for York Museums Trust.

Fast forward to the autumn, and David, Michael, Jacqueline and Adrianne arrived for their day at the Yorkshire Museum. They were promptly given detailed tours of our collection stores in the Museum basement by both myself and Isla Gladstone (Curator of Natural Sciences).

As giving tours of the stores is a relatively rare occurrence for Curators, we sent them away with a hands-on  task -  the designing and installing of two archaeological displays which utilised cases in the Yorkshire Museum Finds Lab to be used in future sessions by the Learning team.

Divided into two teams, the keen curators were set the task of producing one Roman and one medieval display, and with only an hour to do so. By the time they broke for lunch, the weird and wonderful collections in the strong-room had been whittled down to just forty objects (20 each) representative of each time period.

Returning to their duties, and once again under my guidance, the objects were installed in their temporary new homes with due thought and attention divided between the need for aesthetics and good collections care.

Once the cases were closed, the Curators for a day were set the much harder task of designing labels. Describing objects in no more than forty words in a way that is accessible to all museum visitors is harder than it seems, as the four found out.

A final afternoon session involved a fascinating crash course in the correct identification of Roman coins, ran by Rebecca Griffiths (Finds Liaison Officer).

Whilst the prize seems an unusual one, by Friday morning we had received a letter from our guests detailing how grateful they were for the experience and that they were very glad to have been involved. Four satisfied customers.

Illuminate York 2012 opens to the public tonight in the Museum Gardens, which have been transformed into a Wonderland designed by Vic Reeves – or rather Jim Moir.

Vic Reeves . Wonderland

Jim is Reeves’ real name, and the name under which he works as a visual artist.

Twelve of his surreal paintings make up the colourful projection which will light up the front of the Yorkshire Museum every night until Saturday this week.

Vic Reeves, or Jim Moir, in front of the Yorkshire Museum

Journalists were invited to a sneak preview of the show last night and to meet the man himself. Photographer Kippa Matthews took these shots of the museum and a second projection which lights up the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey.

National Dancers

Visitors can actually appear in the  St Mary’s Abbey projection, which is called National Dancers. All they have to do is volunteer to be filmed dancing, and then their image will appear on the ruins!

Looking down on St Mary's Abbey ruins

Yet another projection can be seen on the walls of the Hospitium, featuring the winners of a competition for York children to design a monster.

You can also ride on a bike with illuminated wings, explore hidden pathways and pick up a warm drink, beer or sausage tent in the food area.

To book tickets visit York Theatre Royal box office. For more information about other festival events, visit the Illuminating York website.