Roman Society Bursary Internship at the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle
The GNM has a varied collection, ranging from natural history, geology, ancient Egyptian, Greek and Etruscan items and finds from Hadrian’s Wall to a temporary exhibition on the impact of the looting of museums and archaeological sites in Iraq. My first morning involved a tour around the museum’s highlights from Keeper of Archaeology, Andrew Parkin, and then a specialist tour around the ancient Egyptian gallery from Margaret Maitland, a trainee curator in Egyptology. Both had great insights into their collections and a wealth of experience to pass on over the next two weeks. I was able to sit in on a couple of curatorial meetings and learn more about research demands in the sector, and how to make a bid for Heritage Lottery Funding. I assisted with moving collections from the Shefton space into storage, and helped to clear some shelves in the stores for them. I was also taken to the Discovery museum to observe a conservation meeting about the Mithras stone showing Mithras born from the cosmic egg. Owing to floor vibrations in the gallery, cracks have re-opened in the stone, and Lindsay Allason-Jones (president of Newcastle’s Society of Antiquaries), Andrew and the conservator Rachel were talking over potential action. While there, I met the ‘Cutting Edge’ team, who are undertaking a use/wear analysis of blades and cutting edges in the collections, before being shown around the stores at Discovery. I was shown the bones (human and animal), ethnography, natural history and biology stores. There were some interesting items confiscated from customs at Newcastle airport, such as Chinese lizard juice.
The main project that I undertook during my placement was to create a gallery trail for Black History Month 2012. This is the first time the GNM will be participating in BHM, which is intended to promote and celebrate black history, culture and heritage. There was plenty of material to work with, so after a few different variations, I chose the theme of ‘Talking Heads’ and selected objects including a statue head, a glass head, head vases and cups, a head-rest, masks and a head-dress. Over a few days I photographed and researched the items I selected, using the internet and books in the museum’s library. I was also shown the KE Emu cataloguing system. I wrote up my trail in two different variations (one simply factual, the other with the text written from the point of view of the object). I will be interested to see which the learning team picks for the final trail!
I also assisted Margaret with de-installing the temporary Iraq exhibition (‘Catastrophe!’). This involved removing the information panel boards from their magnetic frames, collapsing the frames and putting the boards away into plastic sheets and packing everything up into transport containers. Then we removed the objects on display from their cases and packed them away into crates lined with foam and conservation paper, carefully arranging the objects and packing up any gaps with foam or paper to prevent any movement in transit.
I spent the last couple of days of my placement looking around the Hadrian’s Wall gallery in the museum to create a database of people from the Roman forts with their names, the accession numbers of the evidence relating to them and the corresponding entry in Roman Inscriptions in Britain, so that pictures of the evidence can be copied onto the existing interpretation to make it clear that the characters presented in the museum were real people and that the evidence for them is nearby in the museum. I was also asked for any suggestions for potential improvements to other areas of the interpretation, so I spent some time on that. I also assisted Andrew with photographing items requested by researchers, which involved going into the museum cases and either removing the object or photographing it in situ. We removed an Etruscan mirror for Andrew’s own research and photographed it in the office under a lamp and photo-screen housing. During my placement I was also able to see some of the other museums and galleries in Newcastle – the Laing, the Discovery, the Baltic, Castle Keep and the Gateshead Heritage Centre.
Having the Roman Society bursary was fantastic as it allowed me the opportunity to undertake a museum internship, during which I gained a wide range of experience. I feel that I contributed work that will be of benefit to the museum and to my own professional development for working in museums and heritage. A big thank you to the Great North Museum and to the Roman Society!
Heather Rae