The working life of Museum of London

During the last 6 months and while the museum was getting ready for the big launch of the new Galleries of Modern London, a small team of us has been working on another exhibition project aiming to highlight the importance of archaeology in the capital. The exhibition called ‘Archaeology in Action’ will open to the public on Friday 16 July 2010 and will run until spring 2012. Within this time one of the elements of the exhibition, the recent finds display, will be changing regularly to showcase new objects soon after they come out of the ground in the various excavations that are taking place around London.

We spent some time thinking about the title of the exhibition. Other candidates were ‘Archaeology Now’, ‘Archaeology Today’ and ‘Archaeology in Practice’ but ‘Archaeology in Action’, a suggestion put forward by our colleagues at the Museum of London Archaeology, won by far the popular vote.

Few people outside the museum world would probably realise how much work an exhibition project entails and how many people from different departments need to be involved to make it happen.

My role as the project manager of the exhibition was to coordinate work, ensure the timetable was followed and key deadlines along the way were met, manage the budget, make sure the right people were speaking to each other and decisions were made when needed and keep everyone in the team and the rest of the museum informed of the developments.

The people who worked with me and who I would like to thank for their contribution to this project are (and did I say we were a small team?):

Jon Cotton, the curator, who selected the objects and images for the display, developed the text and film content, assisted the designer and conservator with the case layouts and object installation, liaised with people at the Museum of London Archaeology and other archaeological companies about the recent finds display and had the difficult task of selecting the five key sites that best represent archaeology in London.

Leigh Cain, the 3D designer, who developed the design concept and layout of the exhibition and turned the three straight, plain, dark grey walls of the exhibition space into an imaginative, clean and fresh-looking display.

Jayne Davis, the graphic designer, who developed the graphic elements of the exhibition, the title, the colours and the layout of the text and images on the walls, graphic panels, and object captions.

Jill Barnard, the conservator, who conserved the objects, liaised with the technicians for the object mounts, managed the installation stage of the exhibition and ensured the showcases provide a safe and suitable environment for the objects for the next two years. Kate French, Lisa Psarianos and Luisa Duarte who have also helped with the conservation of objects and the mounts.

Catherine Stevenson, the learning advocate, who ensured the exhibition is suitable for schools and families and helped to develop our ‘What do these finds mean?’ interactive, which we expect will be one of the most popular elements of the exhibition.

Nickos Gogolos, the registrar, who arranged the loan agreements between the museum and our object lenders and made sure we had all the necessary documentation on time for the exhibition’s opening.

Kirsty Marsh, the inclusion officer, who liaised with the Friends of Arnold Circus for the display of the wall-hanging ‘Bagaan’ a great example of community involvement with archaeology.

Cliff Thomas, Richard Tosdevin and Hilmi Nevzat, the technicians, who made the object mounts and prepared the showcases and object plinths, installed the objects and, as always, helped to sort out all sorts of odd and last minute issues with the display.

Richard Stroud, the photographer, who put together the introductory projection and the film about the Theatre excavation.

Andy Murray and John Iaciofano, the electricians, who wired up the exhibition so that film, sound, projections and powerpoint presentations are all possible in the space and who put the final lighting touch that made the objects in the showcases stand out.

Louise Baker, the Visitor Services team leader, who brought in the operational perspective and advised on aspects to do with the way our visitors will use the exhibition space.

Claire Kirk, the events officer, who organised the events programme so that the exhibition space is also used for talks, object handling sessions and demonstrations.

Nicola Kalimeris, Anne McMeekin and John Joyce from Communications who looked after the promotion of the exhibition and Vicky Lee, the marketing manager who together with Jayne Davis produced the exhibition’s advertising poster.

Cathy Ross, Annette Day, David Spence, Frazer Swift and Roy Stevenson, our approvals team, who had the task to approve and sign off countless versions of the exhibition’s text and film.

Steve Cox and Andy McCabe who looked after the security and health and safety aspects of the exhibition.

Thanks also to:

Our colleagues at the Museum of London Archaeology, Taryn Nixon and Jo Lyon for making the Theatre excavation display happen, Tracy Wellman and Carlos Lemos for developing the ‘Slice through time’ graphic that shows a simplified version of London’s archaeological stratigraphy,  Andy Chopping for providing most of the images that feature in the exhibition and Adam Corsini and Glynn Davis from LAARC for sourcing a lot of the material that is on display.

Nathalie Cohen, Lorna Richardson and Anies Hassan from the Thames Discovery Programme for their contribution and the beautiful film about their work with volunteers and the archaeology on the Thames foreshore.

Our contractors, Matt Di Fiore, Peter Sheldrick, Dave Richardson and their teams for the setworks, graphics production and alarms installation respectively.

Watch this page for more entries from Jon Cotton and do keep an eye for updates in our recent finds display in the coming months.

Elpiniki Psalti , Display and Exhibitions Project Manager

Today’s blog entry was compiled by Jill and Marianne, two of our trainee archaeologists:

“Trench 2 has been cleared to a fairly level surface making it easier to identify the different areas of soil and debris. Following on from a talk on planning, we divided the trench into sections and split into groups to have a stab at plotting by grid these different areas.

In Trench 1 we have had a first taste of using a mattock, or pick axe, to break up large lumps of debris (mainly bricks)…

…We found several metal curves which we guessed could have been drawer handles and parts of a chimney pot.

Also today, Roy Stephenson, Head of the Department of Archaeological Collections and Archive at the Museum of London, came to speak to us about pottery and ways of dating finds.

He was able to identify, from our finds, pottery from Roman and Tudor times and Midlands Purpleware, Tudor Greenware and a small piece of black basalt ware made by Wedgewood.

The training excavation in Burgess Park has started.

This is a five day course for adults to learn the basics techniques of field archaeology in an urban environment.

We are continuing on the site following on from our community excavation work with schools and other groups.

Two of our new recruits, Becky and Katie,  took time out from excavating to share their initial thoughts and discoveries:

” Today is our first ever day as trainee archaeologists. About 14 of us are here from different backgrounds – old and young, supple and not so supple!  we are excavating footprints of Victorian terraced houses, many of which were bombed irreparably during the war and subsequently flattened and cleared before becoming a park.

First off we learnt trowelling to clear debris in order to reveal soil/brick features, discovering small finds as we go.

It is thrilling  to identify an intricate design on a piece of pottery, tile or clay pipe, but less attractive items must also be collected such as random metal pieces and glass.

There is an enormous variety of material…

…brick, plaster from architectural features, coal, slate, flint (all discarded unless unusual) and then clay pipes, pottery , glass etc…oh, and losts of dust!

Will be learning this afternoon how to record the finds on context sheets and seeing what everyone elsehas found and what we can learn.”

Each year the Museum provides the opportunity for groups and individuals to experience a week of hands-on archaeology as we explore a site in London of historical  importance.
The site of this year’s dig is Burgess Park , Southwark, South London which research has shown was once occupied by terraces of Victorian houses, many of which were destroyed during World War II.

In preparation for the first of our school groups arriving on-site Monday (spaces are still available to attend the week-long adult training digs  in July – see our website for details)  Tom, one of our senior archeologists, spent a morning on-site clearing away the top soil back to the “demolition layer” a few inches below the grass turf.

We have been surprised by the amount of brickwork found so near to the surface as this demolition waste is normally moved off-site or more often it is piled together and covered in turf – which could explain that little hill you have in the garden of you flat or house…

One of our key jobs in advance of Monday is to record what is  currently visible on-site which will help our archaeologists plan dig locations for our first visitors Monday.

The results of our upcoming work on-site and the thoughts of those involved will be the subject of updates here on our blog and on our twitter pages.

Kate and Jackie ,who are coordinating the dig, were recently welcomed by the owners of one of the remaining Victorian houses in the terrace which used to stretch to include the site we are now investigating to have a look around allowing them to gain an insight into the scale and design of the homes that used to be on the site of our dig. They were both keen to explore the basement but unfortunately this had been renovated by the local council in the 1980s making the work that will be supported over the forthcoming weeks that more important…

Today we added the last of Oscar Kirk, our 15 year old Messenger Boy from 1919, diary entries to our website, timed to be go “live” on the corresponding day his diary relates to this year.

The last of Oscar’s diary extracts is timed for 29 June, and over the last six months the team in Communications has got to know Oscar very well.

Oscar had a very sweet tooth and included in his diary lists of the treats he had bought that day not only for himself but for members of his family such as his sister Marjorie:

Saturday 22 February 1919 “It is my half day today and I went to Aldgate with Antram and bought a smoked sausage & ¼ of chocolate, a plateful of cockles, two buns, two bars of chocolate”

A veracious reader, Oscar provided an insight into the magazines and books of interest to youngsters at the time, indeed, at times you forgot that Oscar was still only 15 years old as he detailed his working day of early rises and mail deliveries around the docks of the East End, only for his diary to remind you as he writes how at lunchtime he would “stop for a play in the sack shed”.

Between January and June 1919 Oscar welcomed a new baby to the family, and introduced us to his friends and family from ‘Appa and Nana through to the brothers Antram.

As Oscar spent most of his working day outside, he kept meticulous note of the weather, and one of the highlights during this project was welcoming the BBC Weather Show to Museum of London Docklands to film a piece on the diary and indeed the links to all the content from that edition of the show from the Museum – all thanks to Oscar.

Extracts from Oscar’s diary have also been “tweeted” via Oscar’s twitter page @OscarKirk1919 and it is hoped that the success of this serialisation online can be repeated with other diaries from our collection.

The web pages dedicated to Oscar will remain as a resource under “Collections” on the Museum of London Docklands website www.museumoflondon.org.uk/oscarkirk

Fittingly, the last diary entry the Museum holds sees Oscar relate how the signing of the peace treaty that ended WWI was celebrated:

Sunday 29 June 1919 “Yesterday there were Maroons, Thunder Flashes and many other fireworks being let off after 3 o’clock and before 3 o’clock. Today a lot of people were drunk, as a result of the peace.”

Painting: Firework Display in Hyde Park. Oil on Canvas.Charles William Wyllie. The National Peace Celebrations were held in London on 19 July 1919 to mark the end of the First World War © Museum of London.

First members of the public to see new galleries

Meet Londoner’s Denise, Sally, Dawn, Justin and Bryce, our first visitors this morning to our new Galleries of Modern London.

Having waited patiently outside until the Museum doors opened at 10am. All five headed down the main staircase and entered the new galleries at the Sackler Hall and became the first members of the public to visit the gallery spaces (technically the boys were first as they enthusiastically ran ahead).

Everyone (Denise and Sally are daughter and mother whilst mum Dawn was with son Justin and his friend Bryce) was excited to see the new space having heard about the galleries in the media and had arrived specifically to be one of the first to visit.

As Justin, seven, so eloquently said:

“I have been looking forward to this as I know the galleries have been closed for four years and as I’m only seven I have never seen them.”

Sally remembered the lower galleries as they were before they closed and was looking forward to seeing the new layout, having held off visiting again until they opened, a tough task as she loves the Museum.

Dawn was keen to see what we had achieved visually as she found that this helped our younger visitors become interested in areas of history which could further be explored at home through books – a great way to get kids interested in reading.

As they started to explore London’s history from 1666 to the present day, they said they would be in touch with their thoughts on what they saw and experienced.

In just over an hour, they were joined by over 400 visitors experiencing our new galleries for the first time.

The Museum of London is open from 10am to 6pm daily and is free! Find out more at www.museumoflondon.org.uk

This month the Museum of London Docklands launches a web-based initiative bringing to life London’s Docklands in the early twentieth century through the diary extracts of a young messenger boy employed by the Port of London Authority at the time. Recently donated to our collection, the diary details Oscar’s daily activities both at work and home, personal interests (Oscar loved to read) and details of the things he enjoyed when not working ranging from comics and sweets he bought, to visits to the music hall. 

The Museum plans to feature the corresponding daily diary entries on the homepage of the Museum of London Docklands website and on other social media sites starting from January 1^st 2010.

A planned online archive of all diary entries and further supporting details relating to the subjects that Oscar covers in his diary will also be updated regularly. 

Oscar was 15 when he started to work in the East India Docks in 1918 ferrying messages and mail between different docks and Port of London Authority offices. Oscar would have been provided with a uniform and would be expected to look smart at all times (Oscar notes making a “boot pad” on Sunday January 5^th 1919, possibly to keep his boots clean). 

Although work days for Oscar could be arduous he still found time for fun as the start of his diary entry for Wednesday 22^nd January 1919 highlights: “got chapped hands today. Played between 12.30 and 1.30 in the sack shed”.  Oscar was also saving to buy a bicycle of his own, by giving his father a few pence at a time towards the cost. By the time the entries in the diary finish in July 1919 he had given his father 1/6d (7.5p) towards the cost.

Oscar’s diary is currently on display in the Sainsbury’s Study Centre at Museum of London Docklands.  Find out more about Oscar’s thoughts and duties daily on our website from January 1^st 2010 and follow Oscar on Twitter at:  http://twitter.com/OscarKirk1919

Each month we offer an insight into a fascinating object from our vast collection, this month we feature a Christmas card from 1890.

The tradition of sending Christmas cards to friends and family became fashionable during the reign of Queen Victoria and has survived the intranet age to remain a popular way of staying in contact over this festive time.

This card from our collection represents the look and design of some of the earliest cards ever to be sent.

Here, a clown holding a large Christmas pudding pops up when the Christmas card is opened.

 Victorians felt that clown’s added fun, surprise and mischief to many a Christmas scene as they were leading performers in the popular Christmas pantomimes in theatres at the time.

Although clowns are not now seen as necessarily embodying the spirit of Christmas, in the Victorian period, they symbolised the festive spirit of both Christmas and the New Year to both young and old.

Inside the card, a seasonal poem is printed to accompany the sender’s personal messages:

“Hurrah! Hurrah! For Christmas Day, and the pudding so big and jolly, may you my dear be just as gay when all’s gone, save the holly”.

The sending of Christmas cards and many of the other traditions of Christmas such as “dressing the tree” that developed in Victorian times and gained popularity through the works of authors such as  Charles Dickens are explored in a series of events at both museums during the holiday period.

Each month we offer an insight into a fascinating object from our vast collection.

16^th century shoe as worn on the stage of the Rose Theatre 

This shoe was recovered from the Rose Theatre site on the Bankside of the Thames in the late 1980’s by Museum of London Archaeology and is believed to have been worn during performances undertaken on this famous 16^th century theatrical stage. The Rose was one of two key playhouses of Tudor London, the other being The Globe. The Rose was built in 1587, predating the building of its rival by 12 years.  The timbers used to construct The Globe were themselves taken from The Theatre, in Shoreditch, where Shakespeare’s first plays were performed.  The foundations of The Theatre were recently uncovered by Museum of London archaeologists.

The Rose Theatre has long been associated with the works of Christopher Marlowe, with the first performances of plays such as the Massacre at Paris believed to have been undertaken there, but Shakespeare’s also used the theatre. Performances of Henry VI and Titus Andronicus are believed to have graced the Rose’s stage in the early 1590’s.

The shoe is one of many remarkable finds that have allowed Museum of London archaeologists to piece together the story of London’s Elizabethan playhouses. The shoe has a high ‘vamp’ or upper and the pink zig-zagged patterning can still be seen. The throat of the shoe is stitched with delicately holed and decorated scallops. The pressures on actors at the time are highlighted by the hole at the toe end – which was most likely to have been deliberately cut to accommodate a painful bunion.  

This shoe, along with three others from the Museum’s collections worn by later prominent Shakespearean actors, will be on display in the foyer of Museum of London Docklands from late November. The shoes will be surrounded by hazelnut shells found at the Elizabethan sites – an historical equivalent of cinema popcorn today. Dress pins, probably dropped during costume changes will also be on show.The display accompaniesMuseum of London Archaeology’s publication of The Rose and The Globe: Playhouses of Shakespeare’s Bankside, Southwark, the definitive book on the archaeology of these famous Elizabethan playhouses.

 The Walbrook curse
Found in Princes Street, near the Bank of England in 1928
1st-2nd century AD

As the nights draw in and Halloween draws nearer, the Museum this month turns to the dark arts for inspiration for its object of the month, as one of our Visitor Hosts, Kimberley Ahmet, sheds some light on a superstitious object from our Roman gallery…

“In the Museum of London, you will hear the soothing sound of pipe music playing softly near the end of the Roman Gallery. This lulling sound is broken by four strident voices that cry out, causing some of our younger visitors to jump with fright. What are these voices and what are they saying?

Well, in our ‘Spirituality or Superstition case’ you will find objects like clay figures, amulets, vases and religious ornaments. Amongst them you will also be able to find three irregular pieces of cut grey lead. If you look really closely, you will see that each piece has been inscribed with Latin words.

The words you can see are curses, written by angry or vengeful Roman Londoners who wanted retribution.

This month’s object we are highlighting from our collection is a Roman curse inscribed on a piece of lead that was found with a small rectangular hole pierced in the middle.

That hole was created by a nail which would have fixed the curse to a wooden post at one of the Roman shrines which once stood on the banks of the Walbrook stream that flowed south through the City of London down to near Cannon Street Station and is now buried underneath roads, buildings and tube train tunnels.

The lead has been inscribed on both sides with the same Latin inscription. In English it reads: “Titus Egnatius Tyrannus and Publius Cicereius Felix is Cursed.”

In the same case you will find another example of a curse, this one only has the name “Martia Martina” inscribed in reverse. We can’t be sure why the name was written backwards. One theory is that by writing the name back to front it made the curse more potent.

Unlike the Walbrook curse which was nailed onto a post, we think that this curse was folded or rolled up before being cast into a well. Others have been found in the River Thames. Religious belief regarded such water as rivers, streams and even wells as the express way of sending messages to the gods – a bit like recorded delivery today!

Lots of our younger visitors ask us who the people on the inscriptions were but more importantly, what it was they had done to get cursed in the first place. We will never know for certain. The majority of curses generally just feature one or more names, but very rarely do we find more detail. 

Curses were a way of sending a petition to the gods, asking for help. It was also a way of letting everyone else know that this person was not to be trusted. Imagine if you were walking past a post and saw a piece of lead cursing someone you know, do you think it would make you think twice about the trust you place in them? And what about if it was you being cursed – how would you feel?!

There are many different reasons that a Roman Londoner could warrant a curse. They could be thought to have stolen something valuable, an item of clothing, or perhaps maybe they simply knew too much.

One of the scariest curses that I have ever heard translates as: “I curse Tretia Maria and her life, mind and memory, and liver, and lungs, all mixed up together, and her words, thoughts and memories. Thus may she be unable to speak what things are concealed…..’”

Find out more about our curses on the Museum’s new ‘Living in Roman London’ website.