The working life of Museum of London

It’s official:  London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre will be regularly opening its doors to the public from this Friday!

Our volunteers have been training hard and honing their object handling skills -and indulging in a bit of dressing up too :)

Dress rehearsals are over, the feedback was unanimously excellent so we are ready!

Tours last an hour and a half and -for the  sum of £5- will give amazing behind the scenes access to over 10km of shelving and hundreds of thousands of archaeological finds not on display in our galleries. There’s even an opportunity to hold some of the objects!

We look forward to welcoming you here. Check the website for more information on dates and times.

Week 7 saw a big change to the VIP setup… No Adam!

He is on holiday so Glynn and I are in full take over mode :) This also means that someone else has to write our weekly blog and the honour has fallen to me.

Before going any further, I should introduce myself: my name is Lucy and I am the newest member on the Archaeological Collections Officer team here at LAARC.

So far, my biggest challenge has been the height of the shelving: Happily, they do provide ladders here and that meant I was able to get boxes down for Tuesday’s group who kicked off the VIP week by working through glass, stone, plaster, wood, resin (?more on that later) and other registered finds from WAT78

We’ve worked through loads of boxes. Come across some strange archaeological packaging and audited some awesome glass.

Our chosen focus material of the week is CTP. Our workshops on Clay Tobacco Pipes have been led by ceramics expert Jacqui Pearce who has shown us weird and wonderful pipes and how to date them.

Whilst repacking a group of pipes from AG75 we discovered that 139 of them need to be Registered. That’s Adam’s job… Neither of us want to be the one to tell him about this when he gets back :(

In the meantime, we’ve been having fun taking arty photos of pipe stems

and, er, trying to get into the clay pipe user’s mindset

We have also discovered ANOTHER of the ship/boat pipes we had earlier in the project. We were so impressed with the first one that it made Object Of The Week. Now we’re less wowed. However it is still fascinating and Glynn found it had been illustrated in the Archive report so we thought we’d share them with you.

There’s always something strange going on at LAARC. Thursday saw the arrival of some members of the conservation team, here to snif leather. Asked why: “It’s what we do” -apparently.

The weird and wonderful just kept coming. Tuesday volunteer Juliette is seen here with a ‘food sample’ at the bottom of a Medieval vesselbut we also audited a syringe, a tiny chalk wo/man (?) and what we thought was a Roman spur when Friday’s Tina found it but it is in fact a mount (bottom left is the foot)

On the General Finds side of the project we cheered when we packed up the last box of finds from UR74 and then cheered again as we opened our first general finds site from 1975!.

We’ve now moved on to AG75, excavated in Wandsworth. So far the pottery is revealing itself to be quite industrial with bits of kiln and some graphite crucibles.

We’ve had so much amazing archaeology over the last few days it’s going to be really hard to pick our objects of the week. BUT, I think it’s going to have to be the Roman dolphin mount and the object that turned out not to be made of resin…

Ah ha! Yes, I’d not forgotten to tell you about that. Jim audited the find for us on Tuesday. It was so interesting that we went through the records and found correspondance to tell us that it is an early Roman intaglio. It’s made of Carnelian and has a Roman goddess -Fortuna- on it. Yes!

The only thing we didn’t like this week was re-packing Radio Carbon Dating samples. Lucy (a Tuesday volunteer but here seen sneaking in on a Friday) sums up the mood perfectly.

Wow. It’s been an action packed and fun filled five days. Roll on week 8!

There have just been two first birthdays at the Museum of London:

It has been one year since I (LucySawyer, Youth Programme Co-ordinator) joined the Stories of the World team and it has been a year since I helped make our first Stories of the World film with Stephen Rudder from Quiet Voice Productions.

To prove that history moves in circles, we’ve just made another film with him and a fantastic group of young people from the Asta Centre in Newham who really rose to the occasion. They created a production company called Be Real Productions and worked on every aspect of the pre-production and production, including starring in the film itself. They had to grapple with our Roman collections and work out what their relationship to people back then is. No easy task but a great excuse for me to get out our replica costumes and dress up :-)

For all of you out there thinking “a film, that’s a nice easy project”, let me tell you that film making is HARD. We were swarming all over the City and around Silvertown trying to find the right shot, having prolonged discussions about what to include in the story board and that’s before all the waiting around of production and last minute requirements for a table lamp.

I now truly know what it is to be a runner and the vital importance of keeping the talent happy!

Despite the crazy rushing around and the panic when Argos ran out of net curtains we managed to get it done. The film is an official wrap and is now in post-production so we’ll be able to give you a link to the finished product in a few weeks time. It will also be one of the stars of the Our Londinium 2012 exhibition in just over a year. You can’t miss it!

So it’s bye for now from Be Real Productions but watch this space…

Happy New Year to all!

Before we head further into 2011 I thought you might like to know what the Stories of the World crew got up to over the past month or so.

I had the privilege of going into the Josephine Butler Unit -part of Downview prison- to work with a group of young women aged 17.

We had the challenging task of exploring personal styling: Roman v Modern. Happily, Sally Pointer joined us and opended up the world of ancient beauty tips. She is an expert in the historic use of cosmetics, perfume and soap as well as knowing lots and lots about fashion through the ages. We coudln’t have had a better person on the team. This meant the girls experimented with making Roman-style lip balm, jewellery, creating hair pieces and hair pins as well as working on fusion clothing pieces too.

All of these are now on the object list for our exhibition next year: Our Londinium 2012

They loved it. They were extremely talented.

I laughed, I cried, I learnt to do the migraine skank (true story)

Junction, our youth panel, decided to scrap Christmas and celebrate Saturnalia instead (Roman mid-winter feast Dec 17). We feasted, lounged, made traditional Saturnalia candles and spat wine dregs at the wall.

Ok, it wasn’t wine. We soaked tissue paper in food dye.

And ok, it couldn’t have got away with spitting it at the wall, there was a target. And we used straws.

The rock and roll spirit was in there though!

In fact, I got so into the festive spirit that I decided to come in fancy dress to the department’s Secret Santa…

hohoho!

Stories of the World is a national youth engagement project that challenges museums to work in partnerships with 14-24 year olds. We’re exploring the theme of place using our Roman collection. The outputs of our work are going to be shown at Museum of London in 2012.

This work is nothing if not varied.

It would also be nothing without the incredible and incredibly talented freelancers we work with.

I was plunged into the world of sculpting along with five young people who joined the project through a branch of Fairbridge. We would have been lost if it hadn’t been for Matt Caines who led us through the stages of drawing, clay work and our final pieces with the patience of a saint and a seemingly bottomless supply of encouragement. All of us had moments when we would happily have downed chisels and turned our back on stone (or wood) forever but Matt brought us round and the results were stunning.

I loved it. I became a bit obsessed. There’s a small bit of soap stone from Africa in that studio that is mine and is waiting for me to return (I will). By the way, the head scarf and flowery house coat were there not as a fashion statement but as dust protection. It gets everywhere. The same goes for the glasses. Honest.

We worked for nine days, only six of which involved actually carving the stone or the wood but the group surpassed themselves as you can see below: These will take pride of place in our 2012 exhibition. For now they are smothered in bubble wrap, hibernating in one of our store.

So much has happened in the Stories of the World programme over the last three months that my mind is spinning and I hardly know where to begin!

For those of you who don’t know, Stories of the World is a nation-wide programme giving 14-24 year olds opportunities to work in partnership with Museums. We’re exploring the theme of place using our Roman collection and building up to what will be a sensational exhibition in 2012.

Fifteen fabulous young people threw themselves in the archaeological deep end this summer with a full week on an archaeological site followed by a series of interviews with every sort of archaeological expert under the sun. Who knew that single celled organisms only found in certain sorts of aquatic environments can be found in Roman soil samples? Well, you know now.A personal low was when, due to incredibly hard physical work, my trouser buttons fell off. A handy safety pin seemingly came to the rescue. Temporarily. As I introduced the group to one of the archive curators my trousers fell down…

This summer also saw my introduction to mudlarking when the Thames Discovery Programme hosted an afternoon beach combing on the foreshore for our youth panel, Junction. The sun shone and we sifted through medieval pottery, bone, metal work and found an exciting mystery object. Well, it was exciting until someone realised it was a bit of drain pipe.

I was allowed to indulge my fondess for dressing up in September when Junction presented a poetry slam at the Museum. We had Roman-inspired food, including oysters :-) and heard amazing poetry composed on the theme Londinium, performed by 14-17 year olds. Here’s the slam winner being crowned by Alice, one of our very own panel members, and congratulated by Jacob Sam La-Rose, the amazing MC.

You can see films of the performances on our youtube channel here: http://www.youtube.com/user/museumoflondon

This Autumn has been equally jam-packed. Next time I write I look forward to telling you stories of young people getting to grip with Roman stone carving techniques. There’ll also be insights into how young women at the Josephine Butler Unit at Downview prison mastered Roman styling and created their own modern/Roman fusion. Sneak preview of both below.

Stories of the World ‘Speak To Me’ project is well under way at Museum of London!

We are now half way through our sessions with young people at the Coborn Service for Adolescent Mental Health where we are finding out how Roman London has shaped our city today through language.

Our first session guest starred Jenny Hall, senior curator of all things Roman at Museum of London.

She was on hand to answer questions (What does this Latin text say? Isn’t it disrespectful to did up people’s graves?) and explore Roman objects from the Museum’s handling collection with the group. We looked at oil lamps, coins, figurines, dice for games and more. The young people in the group took pictures of the ones they found particularly interesting.

Everyone also got to have a go writing on replica wax tablets too -more difficult than it looks:

We have also been joined on this project by the amazing Ross Sutherland (poet and writer extraoridnaire) who has been leading sessions during which we have done everything from word association games to collaborative storytelling using newspaper headlines, contemporary obituaries and ancient Roman historical sources.

Here’s the first poem we wrote as a group: From a dappy hat to a Roman helmet

 A dappy hat                                       Is a portable radiator

A portable radiator                          Is a blazing cigarette

A blazing cigarette                           Is a tower block on fire

A tower block on fire                       Is a game of Jenga

A game of Jenga                              Is a pile of broken bones

A pile of broken bones                    Is a volley of arrows

A volley of arrows                             Is an upturned cereal bowl

An upturned cereal bowl                Is a Roman helmet

To mark our halfway point in the project we decided to go for the all out Roman experience. We tested their knowledge to the max with the ‘Is it Roman?’ quiz, we brought an adult sized toga (made of strangely itchy wool) and a Centurion’s helmet (incredibly heavy) for the group to try on.

We made a tasty Roman dip (mostly feta and pine nuts, get in touch if you want the recipe, it tastes way better than it looks) using a replica Roman mortarium. We should probably have used a proper pestle too but one of us forgot to bring it…

The back of a couple of metal spoons did the trick in the end, helping us to reduce the herbs to a mush, crush the pine nuts and then add the softer ingredients.

Later on in the afternoon we spent some time focusing on rings. We have some fabulous rings in the collection, a few of which include writing. We compared what gets written on rings today with the symbols and writing used on the Roman rings, particularly admiring a ring at the Museum which has a man’s initials (3 -only male citizens or freed male slaves had the full three) engraved on it. In response, we all sat down and made ourselves rings, decorated with our new Roman initials (found a brilliant, but not real, Roman name generator on the internet).

The poems the young people have been creating throughout this project are going to feed in to an exciting exhibition at the Museum in 2012. In the meantime, some will be performed at an exciting Gladiatorial poetry slam being held here at the Museum from 6:30 on 28 September. So no more poems in this post, I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

It’s been a great first half to this project, I can’t wait to see what our next four weeks will bring.

Stories of the World is a project by which museums all over he country are contributing to the cultural Olympiad. London: World City is the London region’s project.

The film crew in action during interviews

Some of the panellists joined Museum staff (Inclusion Officer Lucie Fitton and me – Lucy Sawyer the new Youth Programme Assistant) and a film maker from Quiet Voice Film Productions during half term to make a short film. It needed to explain what the London: World City project is, talk about exploring the theme of Place through Roman London’s legacy on our city today and encourage other young people to get involved. This was no small task.

Tom, one of the participants put it this way:

“When I walked in on the Monday morning to start the Youth Panel’s week-long project with the Museum of London to make a short film I laughed at the possibility of having a film as an end product!  A film in one week? You must be joking! Especially as after the first day we hadn’t even started a script or decided what the film was going to be about.”

Instead, we learnt about filming roles, practiced shots and generally got to know each other better.

Tuesday saw us exploring the Roman handling collection and sharing stories about objects the Junction members had brought in. The group grilled Jenny Hall (senior curator of Roman collections) and Jon Cotton (senior curator of Prehistory and Public Archaeology) on some of the finer points of the period in question and we also had the opportunity to find out more about the project from Louise Doughty (Stories of the World project manager).

Wednesday was when the group laid down the nuts and bolts of the film itself. Un-phased by the task, Tom writes that

“coolly and calmly the Youth Panel member’s got down to business”

We defined the film’s message, outline, drafted script and decided shots and even started filming.  Everyone went home exhausted!

On Thursday, our main filming day, it poured with rain. Despite this, the brave Junction panellists went out across London, filming each other and trying to get footage to cover our themes of settlement, language and religion.

Alice says that

“Myself and Vicki were set the task of getting footage on the theme of religion and belief. This began to seem like an impossible task when drenched and wandering aimlessly around Holborn we found a Buddhist centre that turned out to simply be a house. Pretty sure that we were never going to find any interesting religious buildings our luck changed when we went to a Krishna Temple. Here we were even allowed to film inside their temple and it was really interesting to learn about and experience a completely different culture”.

Friday was Tom’s highlight of the week

“It was the day that we recorded most people’s interviews to camera. We had to say set sound-bytes to camera as they were written in the script as well as respond to open questions (both of which proved surprisingly tricky and took multiple takes for all of us!). In a way I feel this was the most challenging part of the process and also the most entertaining part of the week in that it really made us work as a team and it really drew out people’s personalities and views.”

Everyone worked really hard, overcoming issues of foreign language, camera fright and interfering heart beat noises!

Alice says

“The project in general was really rewarding, especially learning about the production side of film making and how much work goes in to such a short amount of footage.”

And Tom adds that

“Overall, the project was really good fun and made me realize that everyone has a story to tell and, furthermore, these stories deserve to be told despite people’s age, background or social class. People make our city what it is today.”

We’re all excited about the end result and are hoping it will be ready to show and Junction’s first meeting in March.

Well done everyone!