Nirvana for Archaeology Nerds

During my time in England, I made it a point to visit several sites that were not part of our required course list. This wasn't too difficult, as there are so many museums, archives, and libraries throughout the country to sate anyone's desires. The one that stuck with me most, however, was my visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. For someone who has been a student of art and archaeology for many years, the Ashmolean was a name I heard referenced often. However, I had recently forgotten it until my professor mentioned it while we were visiting the Bodleian in Oxford. All of those high school and college courses in Art History and Archaeology came flooding back and I knew I needed to visit that museum before we headed back to London.

After finishing with our required visits of the day, I quickly rushed over to the museum, praying that it was open past 4 p.m. I was relieved to know it was open until 6 p.m., so I had a couple hours to really experience the museum....and it takes that long to see it all. Discussing every aspect of the museum, however, would be too much for the blog post so I am going to focus on the parts of the museum that really struck my interest: the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art and archaeology wings.

But first, a little bit of background. The Ashmolean has been around for centuries, but the modern version has only existed since 1908. The early 1600s see the collection begin to grow, but mainly in portraits and donated collections from notable Englishmen. It continued to grow for the following two centuries until a large collection of Greek and Roman sculptures were given to the museum by the Countess of Pomfret in the mid-18th century. This expand the museum greatly and it became necessary for the museum to expand in floor space as well. This was finally made possible in 1845. The final major growth of the museum happened in 1908, when Oxford University's University Art Collection united with the Ashmolean to form the modern museum.

When one walks into the Ashmolean, they are directed first to the Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern collections. It is a wonderful wing with lots of artifacts from all periods of Egyptian history. What is especially nice is that fact that it is not nearly as packed at the British Museum, so one can really enjoy the history around them. There is a strong collection of pre-dynastic Egypt, which is a period that many people do not focus on. For example, you can see the Scorpion Macehead, an early Egyptian king who's name is now enshrined in popular culture after The Rock starred in The Scorpion King. According to the museum's website, they are working on a redesign of this part of the collection to help serve their patrons better.

It's really quite stunning in person

The Greek and Roman collections were especially exciting. Specifically, the Ashmolean has a very famous bronze statue: The Artemision Bronze. It was recovered at a shipwreck in the Mediterranean and scholars are still unsure of whether or not it is Poseidon or Zeus. This is because the statue is missing the piece it should be holding in its right hand. It could have been a trident. Or it could have been a lightening bolt. As someone who has seen this sculpture in lot of courses over the years, I was overjoyed to have my photo taken with it.

Laocoon

What is special about the Roman collection is their Cast Gallery. The museum has had casts made of famous statues located in different museums around the world and they have them all housed in one gallery. Thus, patrons of this one museum can see such sculptures as the Statue of Augustus and the Laocoon.

Emperor Augustus (aka Octavian)

Overall, this is a really wonderful museum. It houses much more than what I wrote about here and is well worth the visit while you're in Oxford. If you're only in London, Oxford is merely an hour train ride away and should be visited for the university, if not for this museum as well. I highly recommend it, for the museum has a lot of wonderful items, is well planned out, and had a lot of helpful attendees to make sure your visit is pleasant and informative.

Conserving our Past for the Future

Our final class took us back to the British Library, this time for a tour of the conservation center. Every major library and archival institution does some level of conservation/preservation on their items. Normally, the most important items in the collection are taken care of first and those of less value are conserved later when need or monetary means arise. This is a guiding principal for libraries and archives, for it is far too expensive and time consuming to preserve and conserve every document in the collection.

The same is true for the British Library, which gives a lot of intense care to the most important documents but chooses to give general care to the rest of the collection. For example, the British Library is not involved in a massive de-acidification project. (This means that it would be removing all of the acids from all of the paper in the collection, something that would require an extensive amount of people, time, and money to finish.

Instead, it is focused on preventative conservation, a practice employed by many institutions. The library makes sure that its collections are kept at a certain temperature and are in acid-free folders and archival boxes. They have recently built a low-oxygen storage center in Yorkshire.It keeps the documents at a very cold temperature and doesn't allow them to light on fire. They will be building another one for their newspaper collection very soon.

Moreover, the British Library is a communal institution. It sees itself as the preservation headquarters for all of the archives and libraries in England. Thus, it feels obliged to help out fellow institutions throughout the nation. The Preservation Advisory Center hosts training events for librarians and archivists, gives out free pamphlets on preservation, and speaks at conferences on the subject.

Overall, the Conservation Centre at the British Library is much more than a lot of rooms filled with books, photographs, and documents that need repairing. It is a highly-functioning aspect of the British Library that works to prevent damage to its documents as well as reach out to the archival community in England. The library takes its role as ambassador very seriously and is thus one of the premier institutions in the world in regards to preservation and conservation.

Dr. Livingstone, I Presume

The Royal Geographical Society had a huge impact on the shaping of 19th century British imperialism as well as the world we live in today. Originally a dining club for British gentlemen, it became a more formal society in the 1840s. It's manifesto: to collect geographical knowledge and disseminate it to the greater society. To do so, the society urged people to travel and gather information and then had the information written up in a journal. Out of this, it became necessary for the RGS to start a library to hold all of the material brought back from the travelers as well as items purchased by the society.

Today, the RGS is still in existence but does not fund as many large trips as it once did. This is in an attempt to lessen the stigma of imperialism that is attached to the name of the society. However, the library holds vast amounts of historical information that conjure up Indiana Jones-esque adventures. Our session at the library allowed us to see some of the most important items in the collection. The RGS traveled to Africa, the Polar Regions, Antarctica, and Central Asia, and thus the items in the collection reflect these regions.

We saw a lot so here is a short listing of some of the items:
- Maps Maps Maps! The collection has over 1 million maps and it takes up about 1/2 of the collection itself. We saw maps drawn by the explorers who tried to find the source of the Nile. Some of these are the earliest maps of inner Africa ever known to man.
- Photographs: the photographs consist of about 1/2 million items and we were shown drawings of African animals by some of the explorers
- Objects: There are only 1500 items in this part of the collection but they are some of the most expensive and one-of-a-kind items in the collection.

Here is a short list of what we saw:
      - Dr. Livingstone's Hat
      - Sir Henry Stanley's Pith Helmet
      - Shackleton's balaclava
      - George Malley's mountaineering boot
      - John Speke's sextant

There were all amazing and the librarians/archivist had packed them away well to preserve the items. While we did not scratch the surface of what the RGS has to offer, a visit to this institution allowed us a glimpse into the past and whet our appetite for more adventures!

Paying the Price of History

The National Archives of Scotland:  http://scotsfamily.com/NatArchive.jpg 

The position of archivist/record-keeper is one of the oldest professions in the world. Every country, king, duchy, church, and institution had a record-keeper; someone who kept hold of their records and organized them in an orderly fashion. Today, the position is not as well known and is thus often not recognized by the public as an important profession. Society cannot always grasp the important work done by archivists or how necessary they are to protecting our heritage.

Due to the hidden nature of the professions, archivists are forced to promote their archives in different ways to the public and do their best to raise funds to preserve the documents. This has become even worse in the last few years, with the recession hitting libraries and archives very hard. However, some places have found a way to fund their projects through the collections they hold and the National Archives of Scotland is one of them. 

The records of Scotland have been around for several centuries, but the current building was not erected until the end of the 18th century when it was finally decided that Scotland needed a home for its records. Since then, the archives have been held in the General Register House in downtown Edinburgh. They have since expanded to several other buildings on the outskirts of the city, since the records of the nation have grown quite rapidly. 

More documents means more space means more manpower which ultimately means more money needed. Thus, the National Archives in Scotland does something very different, something not done at the National Archives of the United States - it charges you to do your genealogical research. For 15 pounds a day, you can do a day's worth of searching of the records at the ScotlandsPeople Center. 

Searching one's genealogical records at the National Archives in College Park or Washington D.C., is completely free. but in Scotland, you  must pay. And according to Dr. Tristan Clarke, no one complains about having to pay for this "value-added" service. The people who use the genealogical center seem to expect to pay for such services. This is great for the archives because it generates a lot of income for the institution that it can then put into other services, such as its digitization projects and other preservation needs. 

I'm still in a bit of shock regarding this program, for it seems as something that would never pass in the United States. Having the ability to look at the records of your nation is your right as a citizen. Thus, paying for it seems almost wrong. However, the users of the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh have absolutely no issue and I feel as if this would be a great addition to our National Archives. If it were to be instituted and accepted, the archives could generate quite a bit of money and use it to pay more employees, fund more projects, and propel the archives into the future.