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)