Archaeology. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when someone says this word? Digging? Trenches? Objects? Well yes, all three of those are certainly an important part of archaeology. However, they’re not the most important bits by any means. So what is more important?

Paper.

In particular the hundreds of pieces of paper that are used before, during and after an archaeological investigation. These pieces of paper could be the research that takes place before there’s even any sign of a trowel, or the sketch of the posthole that’s just been uncovered or the detailed analysis of the thousands of fragments of pottery that make up a section of the final publication. Without these pieces of paper, without these archaeological records, everything else becomes a bit redundant.

With this in mind, Archaeological Records was another fundamental aspect of our 10th Anniversary Celebrations that we definitely wanted to include in our 10th anniversary celebrations. Every Friday, you can see the original documents from 1975’s incredible excavations at Newgate Street. These include the original correspondence between the site directors and the Corporation of London; the original context sheets detailing aspects of particular features that were dug; original photographs from the site including some of the skeletal remains; x-rays showing hidden objects; the phenomenal  stratigraphic matrix which shows how each part of the site relates to each other; the finds reports written by the specialists once the site was completed; and the final publications sharing the results with the world.

There’s also one other thing that was crucial to all of the above. The site director.

Like a conductor of an orchestra, the site director makes sure things run smoothly and gathers everything together to produce the final results. And the site director for the excavation we’re working on during our 10th birthday celebrations is none other than Alan Thompson. And as we’ve got the records for the site out on display every Friday, we’d thought we’d ask him to join us too. Back as a volunteer having retired 9 years ago, you can meet Alan and the records he helped create every Friday for the next 6 weeks in Archaeology in Action from 10.00 – 16.00.

Let me start by saying I find skeletons fascinating. When I was putting together the series of events that celebrate our archaeological archive’s 10th anniversary, without a doubt I wanted to make sure human remains featured. When we ran our last Visitor Inclusion Project (LAARC VIP7 – Nov-Dec 2010) we had a table with skeletal remains from the amazing excavation at Newgate Street of St Nicholas Shambles (see here for more information about the skeletons from this site). This proved so popular, attracting almost 2000 visitors over 10 days, that it was the first of our “Archaeology Exposed” events to be confirmed this time around. 

Over the last 3 Tuesdays, our table has already attracted over 500 visitors, all of whom have been fascinated by what skeletal remains can tell you. Again I recommend you take a look at this previous blog to find out how much was discovered from the skeletons at Newgate Street (Previous Skeleton Blog)

However, what I didn’t realise until fairly recently is that we were very close to not having any of this information at all. The site at Newgate Street was amongst the first to uncover skeletons using standard archaeological recording techniques, only, before this dig, they hadn’t really ever excavated skeletons on the scale of which they had on this site. This excavation with 234 articulated bodies demanded a new technique for recording beyond the standard context sheet.

And so a simple but effective addition to the sheet was created. A splayed out image of a skeleton of which any remaining bones could be shaded in. Beneath a series of simple descriptive pointers which would provide more information about the skeleton such as the conditions of the limbs and the state of the bones themselves. Finally the relationship of the skeleton to its surrounding contexts and any plan, photo and extra associated numbers and finds were to be recorded too.

Using this type of recording, our late Senior curator of Osteology, Bill White, was able to right his report and consequently anyone who so wished was able to discover a bit more about these particular Londoners. The skeleton records sheet became a standard method of recording which is still in use today.

So to finish, if you want to see some of these incredible remains yourself, they’ll be on display in Archaeology in Action every Tuesday for the next 6 weeks. And if you want to find out about who created this concept of skeletal recording, you can meet him every Friday for the next 6 weeks as it’s the former site director Alan Thompson, who has returned to the museum to volunteer for our anniversary celebrations. But more about him tomorrow…

1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
I joined the VIP in Summer 2011 to gain more experience in archives and handling of archaeological material

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
The day when we had a seminar on leather artefacts

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
One of the roman shoes we came across

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
London before London

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Upper galleries

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
No favourite year – I’m interested in roman, medieval and tudor periods

7) Favourite Londoner?
Too many to choose from.

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones
Mortimer Wheeler!

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
Egypt

10) What’s next for you after this project?
A placement with the Portable Antiquities Scheme

We’re now 3 weeks into our Visitor Inclusion Project (VIP), the series of events that celebrate our Archaeological Archive’s 10th birthday by sharing our work with visitors at the museum.

We’re having an awesome time, having chatted to over 2500 people so far. One of the best bits of the job is sharing our passion for archaeology with visitors who are often pleasantly surprised that we’re letting people handle these real bits of archaeology. It’s also cool hearing about the number of visitors who have dabbled with archaeology in the past, or found things on the foreshore, or have been to various archaeological sites across the world, or those who simply can’t get enough of Time Team!

Our Archaeology Exposed tables are proving really popular. The things that are catching peoples’ eyes seem to be a crazy example of a piece of wood and what happens if it’s not looked after on Monday’s Conservation table, an example of an medieval arthritic hip on Tuesday’s  Osteology table and possibly the world’s most complicated stratigraphic matrix on Friday’s Records table.

And then there’s the numerous amount of people that have come along to a Hands-On Archaeology workshop, many of whom are from overseas and are loving the chance to have a go at sorting London’s pottery. These two chaps from Switzerland joined us earlier this week, whilst the lady in the left picture was stopping off here from the USA before moving on to Egypt.

And we’re starting to see real results in terms of the material we’re working on whilst we interact with you. Over 100 boxes of archaeology have been repacked and in doing so we’re saving a fair amount of space within the boxes simply by this better packing.

So roll on the next 7 weeks. We’ll be keeping you updated with our progress here on the blog where we’ll also be sharing the history of our archive’s first decade, various objects that narrate London’s history and giving you an insight into the thoughts of our volunteers.

1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
May 2011 – to learn about the history of London and its archaeology

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
No particular day – just enjoyed working with the finds and all the guest lectures/workshops

.

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
There was this cool tobacco pipe

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
Roman gallery

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Upper

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
2011

7) Favourite Londoner?
Christopher Wren

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones?
Mortimer Wheeler

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
Middle east

10) What’s next for you after this project?
A bit of travelling and other volunteer opportunities

Each week as part of our current project celebrating 10 Years of the Archaeological Archive, we’re posting Volunteer Profiles to let you find out a bit more about our excellent Volunteer Team. Today it’s Benji:

1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
In September 2011, it looked very interesting!

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
Discovering a fine example of Elizabethan tassels

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
A fine example of Elizabethan tassels

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
The Newgate Prison in the Expanding City gallery

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Upper

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
1066 & 1966

7) Favourite Londoner?
Iain Sinclair (born in Cardiff but his work is mainly London focused…)

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones
Morty

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
My garden

10) What’s next for you after this project?
Leading tours of the Archive and then starting a degree in archaeology & ancient history

The London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre, better known as LAARC, officially opened on 7th February 2002. Based along the Regents Canal on the Hackney/Islington borders, the museum took a warehouse formerly used by a steel tubing company and made it the home of its archaeological and reserve collections.

There had been archaeological stores prior to this, and indeed in 2002 the collections had been based in this building for a few years already. However, upon opening, this was the first time that our archaeological collections had been easily accessible for research to anyone who so wished to visit.

Yet, it wasn’t all perfect. Archaeology only really turned professional in the early 1970s and even then there were a few good years of experimenting with different methods of recording and archiving. Despite storing the various archived sites in a logically accessible order upon our shelves, we still faced several storage problems such as having random box sizes, items not labeled correctly and more importantly, individual artefacts sitting loosely within their finds bags without any protection, at a potential risk of damage. The improvement of these storage issues was high on our agenda.

LAARC also had community engagement on its agenda and so a project was designed that combined both improvements to the material and opportunities to get involved. With successful funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Getty Grant Foundation, the “Minimum Standards Project”  was born.

The Minimum Standards Project (or MSP) began to involve volunteers with artefacts. These volunteers were mainly people who wanted to get involved with archaeology (or in some cases like mine, unemployed archaeologists looking to keep their finger in the archaeological pie). Certain materials were prioritised such as the bone and glass objects and volunteers would add a layer of protective jiffy foam within the object’s bag making the object more secure. They’d also write out a couple of new object labels in line with the the archive’s standards. Finally, they would check the objects off on an excel database to make sure everything was where it should be. In essence, making sure the minimum standards of collections care were met.

And this was great! Hugely successful, hundreds of volunteers were involved in the project and in 2005 it received the Conservation Award for Care of Collections.

But it wasn’t just finds work. Whenever an archaeological unit had completed their post excavation work they now had one central repository to deposit not only their finds but their records too. And this was applicable to any organisation that had dug in London. The LAARC enabled researchers to view the complete archives all in one place – artefacts and records – regardless of who had originally done the investigation.

All good work and clearly a good resource. So what did we do? We added some fun to it all. On top of LAARC being a model of good collections management and a centre for archaeological research, we held regular themed open days where we could share London’s history with members of the public. Allowing the creativity of our staff to run wild, themes ranged from “Animals in Archaeology” to “Arts & Crafts” with open days blending a mix of object handling, family activities and tours of the stores.

All these aspects helped build our reputation as leaders in both archaeological archiving and as ambassadors of archaeology, creating models of good practice which would then be developed and expanded as the years progressed.

Next month, “2005 – 2007:Expanding our engagement”

 1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
I first joined the VIP9 project because I was interested in learning about London archaeology    

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
No particular day, I enjoyed them all. 

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
Part of a decorated glass fragment   

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
The modern galleries   

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Lower galleries   

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
1666 – London’s Great Fire  

 7) Favourite Londoner?
Munira Mirza, the Mayor’s director of arts and culture policy. I read about her at an article and I was impressed by the exciting events programme she’s planning about London’s history.  

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones   

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
The Ancient Agora, Athens    

10) What’s next for you after this project?
Hopefully I will find a job in an education department of a London museum

Since you woke up this morning, how many different pieces of crockery do you reckon you’ve used today? Maybe a cup for your morning coffee? Perhaps a plate for your lunch? Most of us use these items everyday without thinking about it.

I’m pretty sure the people of Roman Londinium, or those Medieval, Tudor, Georgian and Victorian Londoners didn’t think twice about all those plates, jugs, bowls, cups and bottles they used day in day out either. And I’m pretty certain they didn’t think that 100, 500 or 2000 years down the line, we’d be using their pottery to find out about their lives. But that’s exactly what we do as archaeologists. And now you too as museum visitors can do so as well.

As part of the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive & Research Centre’s 10th anniversary celebrations we’re running special HANDS-ON ARCHAEOLOGY workshops where you can get your “hands on” some of these pieces of pot that past Londoners used.

Every Monday, Tuesday & Friday in the Museum’s Clore Learning Centre, you can join me or my colleague Glynn along with our excellent team of volunteers and help us sort out some of our pottery collections that need a bit of care and attention. So far during these hour long sessions, visitors have got to handle real Roman pottery including serving jugs (flagons), large storage vessels (amphorae) and decorated drinking vessels (highgate ware). There’s also been some lovely London “delftware” and “German stoneware“  that we’ve been going through too.

Each session starts at 3.15pm and begins with a brief history of London’s Archaeology (which is also a chance to spot how museum staff have changed over the past 250 years) before we give you a box of pottery to look at and explain how to go about sorting the pieces and improving the way they’re stored.

The workshops are open to everyone of any age and best of all, they’re completely FREE! So if you fancy coming along to learn a bit more about pots and get your hands on some, please do – it will be great to meet you! For more info visit our events page: HANDS-ON ARCHAEOLOGY

1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
2006 due to an interest in history and archaeology

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
They are all great

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
So many, I can’t possibly choose just one!

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
LAARC

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Both but I really like both the prehistory and roman ones

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
44AD

7) Favourite Londoner?
Robert Hooke

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones
Mortimer Wheeler!

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
Catal Huyuk, a Neolithic site in Turkey

10) What’s next for you after this project?
Back to the archive!

Followers of Rock & Pop music will be well aware that every few years a legendary group reforms. Over the past decade Pink Floyd, Cream, Blur, The Stone Roses & Take That all made impressive comebacks. Well today my blog friends, at 10.00 GMT, the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive & Research Centre had not one but TWO of their very own legends reunite.

Today, Alan Thompson, LAARC’s Archaeological Records Officer when it opened in 2002, worked alongside his then colleague (and current LAARC archivist) Cath Maloney for the first time since retiring 9 years ago. And their reunion was all due to the second and perhaps even cooler reunion.

Today, also at 10.00 GMT, Alan was reunited with the excavation GPO75 – 1975’s General Post Office excavations at Newgate Street – of which he was the site director. From 10am – 4pm, he and Cath were sharing their knowledge, experiences and indeed memeories of the site with museum visitors at our Archaeological Records table in Archaeology in Action. And our visitors (were you one?) loved it as they showed people the original documents that the team of archaeologists wrote on site, photos from the excavation, the various elements that go towards a publication, xrays of mysterious objects that were dug up and of course… the matrix…

And this was just one example of the awesome time we’ve been having this week as we continue to celebrate 10 years of our archaeological archive. On Tuesday, our volunteers from our Osteology section spoke to over 150 people about skeletons dug up from the site (for more follow this link – GPO75 SKELETONS ), whilst on Monday, archaeological conservators from both our museum and those studying at UCL shared their knowledge and expertise about how we preserve our archaeological material.

All three will be returning over the next 9 weeks; Conservation every Monday, Skeletons every Tuesday and the Archaeological Records every Friday – all from 10am – 4pm in Archaeology In Action. Find out more by visiting our website – EVENTS

As well as that our volunteers have been interacting with hundreds of visitors at our two other tables too. Also in Archaeology In Action, Volunteers have been working their way through boxes of pottery, animal bone and building material, improving the way they’re stored and their packaging whilst chatting to visitors. Best of all visitors can handle the material, literally coming into contact with the past.

Outside our London Before London gallery, you can also meet LAARC staff and volunteers and find out what it is that we actually do in an archaeological archive and why this needs to be done. You can handle some amazing artefacts, search for archaeology in any part of London, find out about some of our award winning projects and, should you get the urge, dress up as an archaeologist.

And the number one question that was being asked this week? How can we get involved? The answer is simple. Come along to a free Hands-On Archaeology workshop which takes place in our Clore Learning Centre each Monday, Tuesday & Friday from 3.15 – 4.15. If you’ve ever wanted to get your hands on real archaeology, this is your chance. The workshops allow you to learn about London’s archaeology by getting your hands on it and in the process you get to help us improve the way we store our collections! Check out these pictures from some of the sessions that have already taken place.

For more information about the Hands-On Archaeology sessions visit our events page – EVENTS.

We’ll be around every Monday, Tuesday & Friday for the next few weeks. Hope to see you soon!

1) When did you join the volunteer programme and why?
Joined for VIP9 because I’m interested in archaeology and future museum work

2) What was your most memorable day whilst volunteering?
I particularly remember the leather workshop – great winklepickers

3) What was your favourite object you discovered whilst volunteering?
A horse leg bone. It was massive. Noone was nearly as impressed as I was.

4) What’s your favourite part of the museum?
London before London. I find flint tools fascinating

5) Upper galleries of lower?
Upper

6) Favourite year in London’s history?
1381 – the peasant’s revolt

7) Favourite Londoner?
Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins

8) Mortimer Wheeler or Indiana Jones
Wheeler for the ‘tache

9) If you could dig anywhere in the world where would you excavate?
Marine Archaeology in the Mediterranean, I love diving

10) What’s next for you after this project?
MA in Museum Studies. Hopefully.

If you happened to visit the Museum of London today, did you spot us? The staff and volunteers at the London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre (LAARC) have begun our 10 week residency at the Museum to share our work with you! And if you weren’t at the museum today, here’s what you missed:

Outside our “London Before London” gallery, our archive manager had a selection of goodies:

• Visitors handled objects made in London almost 2000 years ago
• Visitors looked at the original records sheets that archaeologists wrote whilst they were digging up sites.
• School groups had fun trying to figure out a mystery object whose identity was revealed by an  x-ray
• Teachers admired a range of artefacts dug up by school children during our 2005 community project
• Londoners searched our online catalogue to find out what’s been dug up in their area
• One budding young archaeologist tried on a hard hat and held a trowel for the first time!

Meanwhile, a bit further on in “Archaeology In Action” all this was going on:

• Conservation students from University College London were showing people how a piece of wood deteriorates if not looked after.
• There was more guessing of mystery objects using x-rays for answers
• Visitors were handling, comparing (and sniffing) pieces of leather, all conserved in different ways.
• You could take a look at how conservators remove very fragile objects from an excavation

Alongside the conservators were LAARC volunteers:

• Packing archaeological finds, they were chatting to visitors about what they were doing.
• Visitors were able to pick up and handle real objects
• You could discover how we store artefacts at the museum and why we do so

To cap things off several visitors joined us for our afternoon workshop – Hands-On Archaeology – where they learnt a bit about London’s Archaeological history, got their “hands on” some real roman pottery, worked alongside volunteers and sorted pots into different types and helped us improve the way these pot sherds are stored.

So all in all it was a pretty awesome day. It was great to meet so many visitors and share a bit of our work with them. And if you weren’t there today, don’t worry, we’re doing it all again tomorrow and on Friday and indeed, we’ll be around for the next 10 weeks, so come along and say hi.

For more information about our various events visit our website’s events pages: events pages link

In a unassuming building along Hackney/Islington’s Regents Canal borders a team of museum archaeologists are getting quite excited. The reason being, us staff at the London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre are soon to celebrate our 10th anniversary and we’re only days away from the starting the celebrations.

Since opening in 2002 we’ve really focused on 4 main things: To make sure London’s archaeology is stored in an space efficient way that is accessible to all; to encourage and facilitate research into London’s history using the objects and information people left behind; to promote learning and enjoyment by discovering London’s heritage and finally; to be ambassadors of archaeology and leaders in our field of expertise.

That may all sound a little grandiose so put in another way, for the past 10 years we’ve been looking after things that have been dug up, sharing them with as many people as possible and generally have a lot of fun with archaeology along the way.

AND NOW WE’RE COMING TO YOU!

For the next 10 weeks from January 16th to March 23rd, every Monday, Tuesday & Friday, from 10.00 – 16.00, we’re heading to the Museum of London itself to share London’s archaeology with museum visitors. Part of the celebrations will see our Award Winning “Visitor Inclusion Project” return, only this time on a much larger scale.

Joining LAARC staff will be a team of volunteers spanning the past decade, from those who have only just completed a volunteer project, to those that were here from day 1. You can meet them at the “Archaeology Exposed” tables and find out what they’re currently working on every Mon, Tues & Friday in the Archaeology in Action Exhibition.

In addition, on Mondays you can find out about archaeological conservation and meet student conservators from University College London who’ll be sharing the techniques they use to preserve artefacts.

On Tuesdays come and meet our volunteers from the Centre of Human Bioarchaeology and find out how they use skeletal remains to understand past Londoner’s lives.

On Fridays join our archivists who will reveal the importance of recording archaeological data and the wealth of information that site archives can reveal.

And if this wasn’t enough, you can directly GET INVOLVED by coming to a “Hands-On Archaeology” workshop where you’ll have the opportunity to handle real pieces of pottery that were excavated during the 1970s, learn how the museum stores its archaeological collections and help us improve the way these important artefacts are stored.

Each session lasts just an hour (3.15 – 4.15) and are completely free of charge (though you have to get a ticket from the front desk when you arrive).

As the weeks progress, we’ll be keeping you updated with our happenings, sharing stories from the past 10 years and introducing you to some of our excellent volunteers, right here on the blog pages.

We really hope you can drop by and join us as we’re sure it’s going to be a blast. For more info about how you can get involved in the Hands-On Archaeology sessions, visit the events page by clicking here: Hands-On Archaeology event

As the end of another year approaches, we once again have to say goodbye to another Volunteer Inclusion Project. VIP9 has been a whole lot of fun, with some really excellent people having joined our volunteer team for the past 10 weeks. We’ve worked our way through some important archaeological material and now have much better organised and accessible finds archives.

So a huge thank to everyone who’s helped make this project a success; all the specialists and curators that led the workshops and of course the 38 volunteers that gave up their time to help improve the museum’s collections. It’s been a blast and here are a selection of images showing why:

New volunteers improving the collections

And having fun "reinterpreting" the objects

Checking the smell of history

Site archives effeciently reboxed and organised

Specialist Workshops

University of The 3rd Age fun

Home educated children mixing learning and enjoyment

Experts sharing their knowledge

Activities such as medieval shoe making

Right then, one more thing before we sign off VIP9, the result of the Object of the Competition. This project’s best object as voted by you is…. (click anywhere within these brackets to find out)

Was that the one you went for?

Ok then, that’s it for now, we’re off to enjoy the festive festivities. But VIP will be back come January. And trust me, you definitely don’t want to miss VIP10.

Merry Christmas from The LAARC!

And so we come to the end of our ninth Volunteer Inclusion Project. The task this week was to make a start with the reboxing of all the animal bone from VIP9’s major site, Seal House.

The teams cracked on with organising the animal bone boxes into one long sequence based on their context numbers (the numbers relating to the layer in the ground they were found in). They also recorded the shell from the site, quantifying the material before disposing of it.

However, as with all our projects the real focus of the final week is our afternoon visits to the Museum of London itself where we wrap things up with behind the scenes visits.

This project we started with our fabulous friends in the Centre For Human Bioarchaeology.

We then were treated to a tour around our Conservation Labs.

And to top things off, Caroline McDonald, the new Senior Curator of Prehistoric & Roman collections took us on a trip around the Roman Gallery, highlighting key artefacts she would like to explore in more depth for the forthcoming 2015 gallery redesign (Mon & Tues)

whilst Inclusion officers, Lucy Fitton & Lowell Black gave us an insight into the forthcoming Our Londinium 2012 exhibition.

And if that wasn’t enough, we had even more fun on Wednesday for the last sessions with our friends from the University of the 3rd Age, who presented their final creative pieces inspired by an aspect of their 10 week experience.

And to cap this blog off, I’m going to finish with images from possibly the most fun we’ve had with any group on any VIP project – the Family Groups made authentic Roman cuisine, prepared using replica roman mortarium, then we made super wintry scented pomanders and ended with a look at everyone’s comics that they produced last week.

Our final photo of the week is our brilliant security guard Sami, checking the quality of the kid’s garlic dip:

The VIP9 project has been brilliant. From the feedback, all our volunteers, young and old, have not only enjoyed themselves, but learnt lots about archaeology too. And on top of all this the museum now has much better stored archives which are much more accessible for all. Very. Very. Satisfying.

All that leaves me to say is if you haven’t voted for your favourite object from the project, there’s still time to do so (and then you will have been a part of VIP9 as well). Click anywhere in this sentence to link to the voting page. Cheerio!

As this current Volunteer Inclusion Project at the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive draws to a close, we’ve started to see real improvements in the storage and access of our collections.

The big site we’ve been working through since week one has been Seal House, (links to online catalogue) dug in 1974. With the pottery and building material completed in previous weeks, the final boxes of animal bone were sorted and repacked this week, Tuesday’s team packing the last bag.
Friday’s team began the next challenge of sorting all the bags and boxes into one continuous run from context number 0 – the end. That means laying out all the bags and reboxing them into a tidy organised sequence.

On the other side of the project we began attacking the remaining sites from the early 80’s registered finds. This included the metal artefacts from both Crosswall (links to online catalogue) and Bevis Marks (links to online catalogue) and the non metals from Holloway Lane (links to online catalogue).

This last site produced some interesting oddities such as these stone slingshots, prehistoric spindlewhorl and this fragment of a limestone statue depicting a naked dude.

The workshop this week was all about flints and was led by flint expert, Jon Cotton. Handily, beforehand, the volunteers all got to repack some flint artefacts, namely a lot of flint flakes from Rectory Grove in Lambeth (links to online catalogue), bringing the Registered Finds project to an end.

As for our two Wednesday groups, the U3A and the Home Educated families, they continued on from last week, preparing their creative projects which we’re all going to watch next week!

NEWS FLASH!

Each week we’ve been coming across some awesome finds as we’ve been revisiting these early archives and now it’s time for the best of them to all compete in the Object of VIP9 Competition!
Starting on Monday 5th Dec, each day next week four objects will go up against each other and, you, the blog reader will get to decide which is the best. Click on the RSS feed button at the top of the page to make sure you don’t miss out.

The antepenultimate week of the VIP9 project saw a full house of volunteers at the Museum’s Archaeological Archive this week. The only person missing was my colleague Adam, away on annual leave.

In Adam’s absence we made great progress with the General finds, our major site for the project – Seal House – now almost having been completed. With a full cohort of volunteers we tackled the remainder of the animal bone from this large waterfront site.

Two boxes full of bird bones (predominantly chicken) seemed to be never ending, each bag having to be repacked with foam to reduce space but still provide protection for these fragile bones. Friday’s group managed to finish the task and organise several boxes worth into their correct context sequence.

There’s only so many chicken bones a volunteer can repackage and in the afternoons we moved onto Registered finds. Adam had left us with some of the trickiest sites – those that had never had Archive standards imposed when they were deposited decades ago.

Two excavations in Lambeth from the 80s – L54/80 and L204/80 – had their small finds (what individual objects of note are referred to on an excavation) converted into Registered finds (the Archive’s ‘registration’ of these small finds). This involved cross-referencing the original finds list from the Site’s Archive and then completing a registered finds card, illustrating the object and packaging it to the Archive’s deposition standard.

These post-medieval sites produced some fantastic objects, including a coin weight (used for checking the weight and quality of coins in circulation) of the early C17^th, a potter’s tool used for decorating pots (of which Lambeth had a thriving industry from the early C17^th ) and of course the obligatory “unidentified,  iron object”!

Both the Wednesday family groups and the University of the 3^rd Age moved into the creative stage of the project this week. The kids started making comics, squeezing, rotating and adding speech bubbles to photos they’ve taken over the course of the project. The U3A took a more academic route and were conducting further research, and starting to create their presentations. 

And finally, our workshop this week focused on archaeological leather led by our expert curator Jackie Keily. It showcased some of the Archive’s star collections of leather shoes as well as unique objects such as a medieval leather glove and Roman tent panels!

Next week we have flinty treats in store for our volunteers and should be nearing the completion of our Site targets…

For week 7 we concentrated our work on two main materials: leather & animal bone.

With Glynn’s return, he got the volunteers involved in improving assemblages of animal bone from Seal House (links to online catalogue) which meant a big sorting exercise. Similar bones were bagged up together creating bags full of such things as femurs, ribs and mandibles. As long as the bones all come from the same ‘context’, that’s to say the same feature or layer in the ground, they can go together. Overall we try to find a balance between good storage and good access to these collections.

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Over on the other side of the project, Adam turned his attention to leather collections. Lots of sites were checked and sorted this week including leather from Bull Wharf (links to online catalogue) which produced this star object:

Roman decorative "caliga" shoe rosette

The leather from the site next door to Bull Wharf was tackled on Tuesday and among the fine artefacts was this cool scabbard fragment:

And Friday’s team completed lots of little sites including excavations at Bishopsgate, Great Tower Street and Cheapside as well as one of two big investigations at Vintry. Their star find was this studded strap:

Wednesday’s family group checked the other Vintry excavation which produced phenomenal finds such as this drawstring purse:

Inspired by the medieval shoes the children went on to make their own miniature shoes from pieces of felt. The results were cool (but small) as seen in this week’s photo of the week.

The University of the Third Age returned to animal bone as they packed their last finds of the project. Next week they’ll be starting to put together their creative projects based on their experience so far.

Finally, we had the pleasure of MOLA specialist, Jacqui Pearce, who led this week’s workshop, which focused on clay tobacco pipes.

It’s now week 6 of our current Volunteer Inclusion Programme at the Museum’s Archaeological Archive. With my colleague Glynn on annual leave our focus was entirely on my side of the project – the registered finds, those objects with some kind on individual importance to them.  I’ll cut straight to the chase – we came across some awesome objects this week. Here are a selection:

Roman lamp with lion decoration

Edwardian hat pin by jewelers Pearce & Thompson

A complete medieval ceramic crucible

Glass Cocktail Shaker

18th Century Tricorn-Hatted Bird Feeder Top

Most excitingly for me, we started work on sites excavated in the 1980s! It’s taken 5 projects and 55 weeks but we finally got there as we audited objects from Bevis Marks and Ironmonger Lane.

That’s not to say we’ve finished with sites dug in the 1970s as Wednesday’s U3A team found out. Their focus was on building material and they whizzed through 4 sites including Seal House, Chaucer House and Cannon Street. Despite building material tending to be quite plain, we still had a whole lot of fun repacking these bricks and tiles as can be seen in this week’s double photo of the week.

The family groups had a mix of materials to work through including glass, ceramic and stone objects before learning the techniques of “Eggscavation”

There was a brand new workshop this week, led by museum curator Meriel Jeater. Its focus was on two types of post medieval pottery; London Delftware and London Stoneware. It was brilliant to get a close up look at pots that went wrong inside the kilns, the little marks that are left by trivets separating pots in the kiln and just some basic beautiful bottles and pots. Lovely stuff.

All in all, we’re getting through a lot of material, improving a lot of archaeological archives for future research and learning new skills along the way. And this week was extra special as we were joined by our colleague Natalie from our HR department who whilst checking objects discovered more about our VIP project.

As we reach the half way point of the current Volunteer Inclusion Project based at the Museum of London’s Archaeological Archive & Research Centre, we continued to make excellent progress, auditing another fine selection of artefacts and creating much better stored archives.

The pottery from our big site – Seal House (links to online catalogue) – still kept us going this week as the volunteer teams sorted the final few boxes. Tuesday’s team highlighted why it’s important that we revisit these ‘legacy’ sites as a previously unrecorded samian mould maker’s stamp cropped up whilst working through the roman pottery (and a bag of rusting nails also turned up, but they won’t so nice). The best news though is that all the pottery has now been gone through and is awaiting reboxing into one organised sequence.

Tuesday & Friday’s team also tackled the animal bone assemblages from the site, working their way through femurs and ulnas and metatarsals and mandibles. A few nice pieces of bird bone were also amongst the many examples of cattle and pig.

Wednesday’s families started the boxes of building material from the site, before having a go at being mosaic makers themselves. Their final products are this week’s photo of the week:

On Wednesday afternoon, the University of the Third Age turned their hands to pottery from Newgate Street (links to online catalogue), having had a brief history of London’s pottery types beforehand.

The registered finds project turned its attention to leather, with Tuesday’s team repacking and auditing three boxes worth of shoes from 1989’s excavations at Limehouse (links to online catalogue). In doing so, by efficiently reboxing this material, we were able to reduce the space they were taking up by a third!

Monday’s team also worked through leather, though they had the pleasure of sorting out 24 boxes of waste, offcuts and shoe soles. The majority of them had labels incorrectly attached to the bags requiring a lot of restapling and consequently an abundance of redundant staples (as seen in the opening image). It’s often with this type of material that we can see the best results from our repacking and reorganising activities. Simply by laying the site’s entire assemblage out and reboxing in a more effective way (without jeopardising the stability of the object) the results are startling. The 24 boxes reduced to 15, gaining us almost half an extra shelf!

And in terms of objects, it was Tuesday’s team that came up trumps as they also audited glass finds from Newgate Street (links to online catalogue). Finds included a beautiful bead, nice bottle fragments and a piece of medieval stained glass window.

To cap things off, Archive Manager Francis Grew, led this week’s workshops which focused on post-medieval glass blown vessels.

Week 4 then of this ninth Volunteer Inclusion Project based at the Museum of London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre. What have we been up to over the past 5 days?

The daily teams plugged away with the pottery assemblages from Seal House (links to online catalogue) this week as we get ever nearer to sorting out this important archive. Mainly pots from contexts dating to medieval periods, our teams of volunteers continued to rebag material with the ultimate goal of creating better stored archives.

Monday’s team also tackled some metal artefacts from the Tower of London Postern excavations of 1979 (links to online catalogue). For the most part there were rusty bits of iron, however, a few treats came up including those whose identification could only be deduced by looking at their x-rays.

Tuesday’s team also worked on iron from this site but also started working through textile assemblages from Unicorn Passage (links to online catalogue). Unfortunately, some boxes needed more work than we originally thought, so things had to be put on hold for the time being. However, there were still some spectacular pieces such as the silk tassels in the opening picture of this blog, and also some interesting shapes, one of which leads nicely to this moustachy photo of the week.

Friday’s team continued with metals from the Tower of London excavation; those which had been overlooked in the past and needed updating and those whose finds cards needed rewriting. Although it’s taken a few sessions to get all this site’s metals checked and sorted, it’s been worth it as the archive is much more organised and accessible than before.

Friday’s team also completed the non-metals from the site and again discovered some amazing pieces such as tiles, figurines, brushes, pegs and combs.

Wednesday’s family groups focused on Roman coins this week, checking and tidying up the packaging of over 50 coins from Clements Lane (links to online catalogue) and Vine Street (links to online catalogue) before making their own designs for their own copper coins.

And finally… the workshop this week was all about Archaeological Records, led by our very own Lucy Sawyer. The workshop was an opportunity to find out about all the different stages of an archaeological investigation from initial contract, to assessment, to excavation, to write-ups, to publication. It was also an opportunity to visit our records office and archivist, Cath Maloney, who went through some recently deposited material.

All our trained tour guide volunteers show and explain a bit about archaeological records on our behind the scenes tours. If you would like to come along to a tour, you can purchase a ticket via our website (link to events page).

You can also meet Lucy and some of our volunteers this weekend at the One New Change shopping centre in the City of London, where we’ll be displaying a selection of objects found in the area.

Having eased our volunteers into the project with nice materials like ceramic, glass and stone, for their third week, we gave them RUST! Yep it was time for the metals.

Now, the truth is, when working with metallic objects you never really know what state they’re going to be in. There’s a lot of pieces of iron that are heavily corroded, but that being said, there’s a lot of nice pieces too, such as one of the star objects of the week, this Saxon knife blade with copper inlay decoration:

Copper artefacts are also a mixed bag, but between the  many uninteresting pins and “unidentified fragments” we have some beauties. The opening photo of a belt fitting found by the Tower of London Postern Gate (links to online catalogue) was one such find. It is thought to depict St George towering over the slayed dragon but just to make sure, Tuesday’s team examined it under a microscope to get a better look.

To make the days a little varied, each afternoon we worked on pottery from Seal House (links to online catalogue). This will be one of the big sites we’ll be tackling over the course of the project with 235 boxes to check and organise.

Wednesday’s family groups started on the animal bone from the site before identifying paw prints on roman tiles and then making their own.

It was real good fun as you kind of get the impression from by this week’s photo of the week:

In the afternoon the University of the 3rd Age focused on leather artefacts, having had a talk on leather by curator Jackie Keily.

And finally, our workshop this week was all about building material; bricks, tiles, mosaics, painted wall plaster and stonework all included.

You can find out more about our activities by joining us behind the scenes next Friday and Saturday. Book here for your guided tour of the archive (links to events page)

We felt that the support that resulted in our diligently boxed PLA Archive volumes deserved to be highlighted in a post of its own.

Here, one of our volunteers, Kate, shares her thoughts on her time with us and the process of boxing up key PLA record books:

“It was a fantastic experience and very valuable as a trainee paper conservator to be able to have ‘hands-on’ experience of cleaning and repairing documents then building the archive boxes for long-term storage for an established museum.

I would measure the books and make each box to fit the book, making sure there was enough room around the edges inside the box to be able to fit fingers in to lift the text out. To stop the book sliding around plastazote can be slotted into the box.

Using archival adhesive I would fold the archival cardboard and stick at the edges together using clamps to hold everything in place while the glue was drying. The box was made in two parts, a base and a lid that fitted over the base.

Here is an image of a bespoke box ready to go back to the store! ”

Look out also for an update soon from Claire Frankland, Port & River Archivist and Project Manager, as this project reaches its first birthday.