A Lust For Rust
October 20, 2012 Archaeology, Blogs, LAARC, LAARC VIP, Volunteers
I won’t lie. Working in an archive full of archaeology is pretty cool. Working with a great group of volunteers on improving archaeology is even cooler. Getting to handle amazing objects (that at some point in the past belonged to someone in London) starts to blow my mind. And doing all of the above and then watching how our finds work saves shelf space & improves the collections, well, that’s the kind of thing that keeps me smiling.
But then we get a week where we’re faced with metal.
It’s now our eleventh Volunteer Inclusion Project and without exception, when it comes to working on metal artefacts it’s not long before someone asks “why do you keep this stuff?” It’s a reasonable thing to ask. Rusty bits of iron in shapeless forms, red-brown dust corroding off objects, green blobs of copper and grey droplets of lead waste, well, they aren’t the most inspiring of museum artefacts. Or are they…
I’m not going to go into detail about the conservation issues surrounding iron and copper (check out Jill Saunders excellent blog for that) but what I will say is that even the most boring looking rusty lump of iron has an archaeological importance. At the very least it tells you something was going on in that area; it might have been metal production or an industry; it may have been a boat with nailed timbers where the wood’s rotted and long disappeared, the iron nails being the only remaining evidence that it existed; it could be a copper button that fell off as a Elizabethan was walking home from the pub.
And there are of course times when metals come up trumps. We did come across a rather nice (and pretty chunky) roman key, a post medieval copper candle stick and several decent coins from all periods. And even when things aren’t obvious with the naked eye, when you take a look at the x-rays, it’s pretty awesome to ‘see beneath’ the corrosion and get a glimpse into what the thing would have looked like originally.
ece units :
Date: November 9, 2012 @ 4:41 pm
Thanks for sharing your thoughts about solomon’s. Regards
Inside the Museum of London » Blog Archive » Your Heritage, Your Choice :
Date: December 3, 2012 @ 12:20 pm
[...] The next contender is a Roman Coin from Pudding Lane EC3. Made from copper this is known as an as, one of the lowest denomination in the Roman Empire. This one has actually been cast (versus struck) and as such is a contemporary copy. Coin forgery was punishable by death in the Roman period, but copies of Claudian asses (which this is) may have been ‘semi-official’ as there was a lack of small change during the latter part of his reign. Copying of these coins has been associated with the Roman army with large groups having been excavated from Roman Southwark. This object was audited by Thursday volunteer Elaine during week 3. [...]
Inside the Museum of London » Blog Archive » Decisions, Decisions :
Date: December 5, 2012 @ 12:18 pm
[...] first option was audited by Tuesday volunteer Aris during week 3. This Roman Slide Key was discovered in 1981 at Pudding Lane, EC3 and is evidence of security [...]
Inside the Museum of London » Blog Archive » Your Artefact Finalists :
Date: December 11, 2012 @ 11:50 am
[...] winner was the Roman Slide Key that was audited by Tuesday volunteer Aris during week 3. It was discovered in 1981 at Pudding Lane, EC3 and is evidence of security conscious Roman [...]