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