Week 4

During Week 4, the 'Museums and Archaeology' group have been continuing our search of The Manchester Museum's collections, with the aim of sourcing possible objects for inclusion into our archaeological catalogue. Initial searching of the museum's online catalogue (http://emu.man.ac.uk/mmcustom/narratives/) produced some interesting results, ranging from Athenian silver coins (depicting Athena and an Owl) to terracotta figurines of goddesses.

Athenian Silver Coin & Poseidonia Silver Coin

To further our search for objects, the group have now begun utilising the museum’s KE Emu Collections Database, which allows the entire ‘Manchester Museum Collection’ to be searched. After an hour’s session searching KE Emu on Tuesday morning, the group had uncovered some very interesting objects and arranged to meet again on Thursday morning, to conduct further searches and to finalise a list of objects from which to construct the catalogue.

The group have also decided to focus the catalogue specifically on Ancient Greece, as we felt that this would produce a more beneficial and useful learning resource that schools may use either prior to their museum visit, or as a resource to take away with them. This idea was then further developed by the decision to concentre upon the gods/goddesses depicted on the Greek Pantheon, the Homeric Heroes and Historical Figures. Therefore the ‘Celebrities of the Ancient World’ that we plan to represent in our archaeological catalogue are as follows:

Gods/Goddesses depicted on the Greek Pantheon- Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hermes, Demeter, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis, Apollo, Ares, Dionysus
Homeric Heroes- Achilles, Ajax, Odysseus
Additional Heroes- Herakles, Theseus, Pericles (historical figure)

Historical Figures- Socrates, Aristophanes and the Tyrant Killers

The group have decided that once we have selected our final list of objects for inclusion in the catalogue, the objects will be divided equally between the group, following which further research will be conducted. The bowl that generated our initial idea for the project will be researched by the group as a whole. The group plan to photograph our final selection of objects next week.

Additional to our continuing project work, the ‘Museums and Archaeology’ group have also attended a seminar on Archaeological Conservation run by Irit Narkiss (Conservator at The Manchester Museum) and also a Photography Session run by Stephen Devine. We found both of these sessions very interesting and they are sure to prove useful in the production of our archaeological catalogue.

(Written by Hannah White)

Week 3

In week three of Museums and Archaeology, we visited the storage collections of Manchester Museum. The tour and seminar were lead by Bryan Stitch, who is the Curator of Archaeology and the Head of Human Cultures at the Manchester Museum.

In this seminar, we covered four major topics: storage and conservation (focusing on preventative conservation), documentation, archiving, and other aspects of collections management. Our first stop was large objects from the ancient and prehistoric collections. These were all in boxes with the area and accession number written on them. As Bryan explained, many of the boxes were not ideal for conservation: they were flimsy and had staples that could rust. Fortunately, the conservation team at the Manchester Museum was beginning to replace these with boxes that were more suitable to both longevity and access.

We then visited the climate-controlled room with the collection of metalwork. This collection had to be kept at below 30% humidity due to the rate of deterioration. Bryan explained that before loaning or exhibiting any of the objects (especially the metalwork collection), the conservators had to analyze the site, transportation, and display of the object to make sure that the object would be safe in its surroundings.

After the talk on storage and conservation, we moved on to the computer documentation demonstration where Sue spoke about and showed us the KE EMu system. This system not only keeps track of all data about the object (including size, weight, provenience, and accession number), it also allows users to cross-reference and see pictures of the objects. In all, it is an extremely important tool in collections management.

We then moved on to tour some of the other collections, stopping at the paper collections (with data on archaeological sites) and some examples of good and bad storage systems. We also spoke with Bryan about acquisition and disposal of artifacts, as well as the need for policies on each. In all, it was a very informative and helpful seminar.

This week was also the deadline for our group project outline, which was handed in on Friday. We designed the idea and scope of the project, and will be working next Tuesday to find objects for our catlogue.

-Erika

Week 1

Part of the assessment for the museums and archaeology course is to work in a group and create our own artifact catalogue of objects from the Manchester Museum. On Friday 5th February we meet with Bryan Sitch, Curator of Archaeology at the Manchester who showed us a number of objects, mainly pottery that were part of a collections of objects that all had accession numbers but very little else written or known about them. We were charged with the task of picking a number of items and researching and presenting them in an interesting way to a particular audience of our choosing. There were a number of objects that particularly caught our attention, generally the ones that were interestingly decorated objects. We went away from the meeting with Bryan with a couple of ideas about decoration but a final decision had not been made.

We met again on Tuesday before our lecture and discussed an idea which had cropped up on Friday, that of gods and goddesses from Greece. Hannah Manson had researched the national curriculum and discovered that as part of the key stage two children had to learn about key figures from the ancient world. Hannah Lawson then pointed out that at the school she works at the children know all the current celebrities so we thought we could do a catalogue that talked about ‘Celebrities of the Ancient Past’ discussing why they are famous and the way thier fame is portrayed on the objects we have chosen,using people from the Roman, Greek and possibly Egyptian periods. We will start with the pottery we were shown by Bryan and then use the Manchester Museum catalogue to find other objects which suit the criteria.

We also thought that because the catalogue is for children it could contain a number of activities which will help the children to engage with the material and information they can learn from the material. We were shown an artifact catalogue for an academic and I think it looked pretty boring so to get the children to be interested in what the catalogue is telling them it needs to be really fun as well as educational. Easier said than done I think!
Objects we have chosen so far

(Written By Beth Thomas)