Leah Lazar – Museum Internship Bursary Report
The Roman Society generously gave me a bursary to work in the Department of Greece and
Rome for two weeks this September. I have been a regular visitor to the British Museum for
many years, which had led me to consider a career in curatorship. However, before I was
awarded a Roman Society bursary, I had no experience of working in a museum. Therefore
my time in the Department of Greece and Rome was eagerly anticipated.
I was assigned to work under Andrew Shapland, the Greek Bronze Age curator in the
department. A few years ago, as part of the British Museum’s annual survey of unregistered
material, he came across some boxes which appeared to contain finds made by British
troops in Macedonia in the First World War. The Salonica Front has been largely neglected
by history despite being a major area for troop deployment during the War. Soldiers suffered
in incredibly difficult conditions, although there was not as much active fighting as in other
areas. Intriguingly, a huge number of archaeological finds were made by British troops there,
usually in the process of digging trenches. They were gathered in a museum in Thessaloniki
and were transferred to the British Museum in 1919, with the consent of the Greek
government.
Andrew discovered that, although thousands of finds from different sites were shipped to
England (mostly pottery sherds), only a fraction were registered at the time. He began
registering the remaining material in 2011. By the time of my internship, he had moved on to
boxes of unregistered material which were not labelled, but which he strongly suspected
came from the Salonica front, on the basis of similarity to previously registered material and
to the presence of labels on some of the objects corresponding to information from a
catalogue made in Greece at the end of the War. I came at a very exciting time as I was able
to finish registering the finds.
My work consisted of labelling the finds (pottery sherds, a few more complete pots and
pithoi, some stone tools, some metallic remains, as well as some other objects),
photographing them from multiple angles using a fairly professional set-up in one of the
storage basements, creating records for the finds on Merlin (the British Museum’s
computerised records system), editing the photographs, attaching the photographs to the
records using software called Digital Assets, and then going through the records with
Andrew to add more exact details and information. The last stage was the most exciting and
challenging; there was a huge range of material from Neolithic through to Ottoman. I started
being able to distinguish Bronze and Iron Age pottery sherds, and to identify Macedonian
material correctly from the type of clay used. My records are now on the British Museum’s
website.
I gained a huge amount of experience into archaeological processes and into the day to day
work of a museum through this task. Although I found the attempted identification of the
objects fascinating in itself, and appreciated the fact that I could aim towards a very tangible
target with the registration of the material, the project was made particularly exciting for me
because of the wonderful human story behind the discovery of the finds. I was not expecting
to be so fascinated by an episode in modern military history. In the memoirs of one of the
British excavators, he noted a very moving juxtaposition, in that the soldiers were moving the
instruments of modern warfare aside to dig down to the level of Iron Age warrior graves. This
interplay between Ancient and Modern history is riveting, and I hope it will gain more
recognition as the centenary of the War grows near.
In addition to working on this project, I was able to attend a number of staff seminars,
lectures and meetings with Andrew, which gave me a much more complete idea of the wider
running of the British Museum. The most memorable of these were a seminar on the role of
3D technology in the world of museums and a start-up meeting for a new display. I also
attended a lecture Andrew himself gave to the Friends of the British School at Athens where
he talked about the project. I am very grateful to Andrew for giving me this insight into every
aspect of his job. I now have a much better understanding of how a museum runs, and feel
better equipped to look for further experience in the coming years.
I have some of my bursary money left over, which I intend to use to travel to London in
November to attend an international colloquium on the Salonica archaeology which Andrew
has organised. There will be speakers from Greece, from the Louvre, from Scotland and
from the Imperial War Museum. Andrew will be talking about the British Museum’s collection.
I am very excited for this.
I would like to thank the Roman Society for their generous bursary, as well as Andrew
Shapland and everyone else in the Department of Greece and Rome who helped me during
my time there.