Tea is served from 4.15pm, and the chair will be taken promptly at 5pm. Non-Fellows are welcome to attend as a guest of a Fellow. Please contact the Society if you need help in finding a Fellow to act as your host.
10 January 2008: The archaeology of attack: investigating battlefields in Britain, by Glenn Foard, FSA.
After a brief flowering in the nineteenth century, the antiquarian study of battlefields was wholly supplanted by an interest in fortified sites. Over the last decade battlefield archaeology, through the study of historic terrain and of the archaeology of attack, has once again begun to contribute to the study of warfare in Britain. For medieval warfare we are still struggling to identify the physical evidence and where it may survive. However with the advent of lead bullets, from Flodden to Culloden, archaeology can tell us much about the evolution of firepower, which was the key to Europes domination of the world.
17 January 2008: The waterfront archaeology of medieval and Tudor London, 19732007: interim conclusions after thirty years, by John Schofield, FSA, and Lyn Blackmore, FSA, in association with the City of London Archaeological Trust.
This first joint lecture of the Society and the City of London Archaeological Trust (CoLAT) will summarise one of the most important campaigns in European urban archaeology of recent decades. One purpose of the lecture is to raise public awareness of CoLATs work in raising funds for archaeological research and education in the London area, and in introducing potential sponsors to the material. Some finds will be displayed at the lecture, and there will be a wine reception afterwards.
24 January 2008: Ballot. Blue Papers for the 24 January ballot can be found on the website, where you can read the Blue Papers and vote online. Note that John Gaters Blue Paper, which was added as a late entry, is listed on its own, below the main block of Blue Papers. Contact Christopher Catling if you have problems accessing the Fellows area of the site, or would like to register for a password.
28 January 2008: Tercentenary Festival lecture in association with the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, given by Professor Lord Renfrew, on The Dawn of Civilisation at the Royal Museum of Scotland lecture theatre, starting at 6pm and followed by a reception at Old College, the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Lord Renfrew will compare aspects of ancient civilisations and reveal some striking similarities. Did they originate independently, and can contemporary archaeology use these resemblances to give more general insights into the nature of humankind? Tickets (free to Fellows) can be booked by contacting the Society.
Making History: an opportunity for debate
The Societys Tercentenary exhibition Making History: Antiquaries in Britain 17072007 attracted around 40,000 people and has received widespread critical acclaim. Despite the many positive outcomes, not least of which has been the raising of the Societys public profile, Council noted at its meeting on 6 December 2007 that the ticket income was below target. Council will be receiving a review of the project in the New Year and has agreed that the results of this review will be presented to Fellows for discussion at a ballot meeting in the spring of 2008.
Best translation of Non extinguitur
An otherwise favourable review of the Societys Making History exhibition published in The Book Collector in December 2007 nevertheless found fault with the catalogues translation of the Societys motto, non extinguitur, as shall not be extinguished. In the Old Testament (Isaiah 66: 24) and the New (Mark 9: 4247), the phrase is used to describe the fires of hell where ignis non extinguitur (the fire is not quenched), but the use of the phrase in connection with our Lamp of Knowledge emblem implies the superiority of the light of knowledge over the darkness of ignorance. Is there a better translation that captures the essence of the Societys role in the world? Literate and/or classically trained Fellows (arent we all one or both?) are invited to submit their suggestions.
Bernard Nurse: retirement gift
Bernard Nurse retires from the post of Librarian on 18 January 2008, when a small party will be held at Burlington House to wish Bernard farewell (please let Jayne Phenton know if you would like to attend). If you would like to contribute to Bernards retirement gift, cheques should be made payable to the Society of Antiquaries.
With thanks to Fellow Philip Lankester for help in scouring the small print of the London Gazette, Salon is pleased to record that six Fellows featured in the 2008 New Year Honours List, as follows:
CBE: Charles Robert Saumarez Smith, lately Director, National Gallery, now Secretary, the Royal Academy, for services to art;
OBE: Donald Reeve Buttress, LVO, Architect and Surveyor, for services to the conservation of cathedrals; Susan Margaret Davies, Chief Executive, Wessex Archaeology, for services to heritage; David Robert Hutchinson, lately Vice-chair and Media-Side Chair, Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, for services to the media; Geoffrey Beard, Co-Founder, Furniture History Society, for services to heritage;
MBE: Richard Halsey, lately Places of Worship Strategy Manager, English Heritage, for services to heritage.
Among those honoured for services to heritage who are not Fellows were:
DBE: Lynne Janie Brindley, Chief Executive, British Library, for services to education; Fiona Claire Reynolds, CBE, Director-General, National Trust, for services to heritage and to conservation;
OBE: Michael Anthony Cairns, lately Commissioner of English Heritage, for services to heritage; Stephen Edward Linton Clarke, for services to maritime heritage and to the community in Bideford, Devon; John Winsor Harcup, for services to health and to heritage in Malvern, Worcestershire; Jennifer Sheila Uglow, biographer and editorial director, Chatto & Windus, for services to literature and publishing (and contributor to the Societys Making History exhibition catalogue);
MBE: Maureen Anne Ainsley, Chair, Battle Museum of Local History, for services to the community in Battle, East Sussex; Garth Collard, for services to the Linton and District History Society, Cambridge; Herbert Coutts, lately director of Culture & Leisure, Edinburgh City Council Council, for services to the arts and recreation (formerly in charge of Edinburgh City Museums and brother of our Fellow Catherine (Katy) Cubitt); John Timothy Dallimore, for services to heritage in Somerset; Oliver Garnett, Guidebook Editor, National Trust, for services to heritage; Peter David Geddes, for services to industrial heritage in the Isle of Man; Christopher Frederick Haines, for services to Roman history; Ian Harwood, President, The Lute Society, for services to musical heritage; Valerie Preston Ives, for services to heritage in Leeds; Barry Ronald Littlewood, lately Chief Executive, Coventry Transport Museum, for services to heritage; Henry Craig Madill, for services to maritime heritage in Northern Ireland; David Shelley, Deputy Head of Building, National Trust, for services to heritage; Ann Margaret Watters, Chair, Kirkcaldy Civic Society, for services to heritage in Fife; Marjorie Williams, for services to heritage and to the community in Guildford.
Sadly, we also lost four Fellows towards the end of the year: Mats Malmer (18 October 1921 to 3 October 2007), Graham Pollard (25 December 1929 to 17 December 2007), Sir Howard Colvin (15 October 1919 to 28 December 2007) and James Thorn.
James (Jim) Thorn was elected a Fellow as recently as 16 November 2006, and his funeral will take place on 11 January at 11.55am for 12 noon at Beckenham Crematorium, Elmers End Road, Kent (further information from Dorothy Thorn). From the 1960s, Jim was an archaeological illustrator with the Department of the Environment, later English Heritage, and then, up to his retirement, with the British Museum. He is also remembered for his many papers on medieval pottery and his surveys of monuments in Cyrene, leading to his major achievement, The Necropolis of Cyrene: two-hundred years of exploration (2005), a massive task involving the survey of numerous tombs.
Mats Peterson Malmer was elected an Honorary Fellow on 6 January 1983. The In Memoriam section of the Antiquity website records that he studied humanities after war service, was inspired by his teachers to study archaeology and was appointed head of the Stone and Bronze Age division of the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm in 1959. From 1970 he worked as a professor of archaeology, first in Lund until 1973 and then in Stockholm until 1987. He was a brilliant field archaeologist and theoretician, greatly influenced by analytical philosophy, not least Wittgenstein, as is plain from his doctoral thesis, a study of the Neolithic Battle Axe Culture of Sweden and Norway and its European connections in which he argued that what lay behind different material expressions was the diffusion of ideas about material culture and varying local conditions. But the doctoral thesis was equally a methodological attack on what Malmer called impressionism in archaeology, that is, the lackadaisical way in which many archaeologists classified their material. He demanded clear definitions of basic categories such as time, space and typology. Thus he set the stage for a theoretical and methodological debate that would later be named the New Archaeology in the Anglo-American tradition.
Swedish archaeologist Dr Martin Rundkvist describes Mats Malmer on his blog site as my number one archaeological hero, explaining that he stressed the importance of clear thinking and clear writing, because in science no thinking can ever be clearer than the language in which it is presented. He also stressed the primacy and uniqueness of archaeologys source material: most sciences deal with mute inhuman things, history with speaking human things, and archaeology alone takes care of all that is mute and human. I am very proud to count myself a Malmerian archaeologist.
John Graham Pollard was elected a Fellow on 6 March 1975. In an obituary published in the Independent, our Fellow Mark Blackburn wrote that Graham moved to Cambridge with his family at the end of World War II when his father was offered a clerical job at Pembroke College. There he discovered the Fitzwilliam Museum. Within a few months he had been seen in the galleries so much that he was asked if he would like to work as an attendant, and thus he embarked on a career in the museum that would last for forty-one years.
He registered for a London University external degree in Geography, but had to abandon it in 1948 when he was called up for National Service. On his return in 1950, he was appointed a Museum Assistant and assigned to the Coin Room to work under Harold Shrubbs. With encouragement from the museums director, Carl Winter, he decided to apply to Cambridge University to read History, and rapidly taught himself sufficient Latin to pass the entrance exam, entering Pembroke College in 1951. He continued to work part-time for the Fitzwilliam during the first two years of his degree, and was given leave for the third. On graduating in 1954 he was appointed Junior Assistant Keeper, and promoted to Keeper of Coins and Medals in 1966 and Deputy Director in 1969.
Pollards interest in medals had been fired by chance soon after arriving in Cambridge. In a fire-sale at an antique shop he saw a tin bath containing several hundred medals, and hastened home to borrow money from his father to buy them. The Italian connection came somewhat later and for a different reason. His first trip, in 1957, was with a group of friends wanting to look at Italian architecture, and he was bowled over by the experience. On a subsequent trip, in 1961, he went with Jack Trevor in search of fossils at the mine of Bacinello in southern Tuscany. In the nearby town of Grosseto he met a young schoolteacher, Maria Seri, who two years later would become his wife.
From then on his publications flowed, and in the Fitzwilliam he set about extending the medal collection through a series of discerning purchases that transformed its depth and quality. His friendly manner encouraged donations, notably one from the Revd Henry Hart, who gave his excellent collection of Greek coins to the museum in 1963. Just as crucially, Pollards good relations with [our late Fellow] Philip Grierson, the Honorary Keeper of Coins from 1949, helped to secure for the museum the finest collection of European medieval coins in existence, which Grierson lent in 1975 and bequeathed in 2006. Pollards interests also extended to modern and contemporary medals, and he was a founding member and the first president of the British Art Medal Society, 1982 to 1986.
Pollards career at the Fitzwilliam ended in 1988 when, after a frustrating period having to deal with a difficult colleague, while feeling unsupported by the then Director, Michael Jaffe, he took the option of early retirement. This freed him to work on an authoritative catalogue of the Renaissance medals in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In this he was assisted by his wife, Maria, whose knowledge of Italian literature led to a number of significant discoveries.
Renaissance Medals was due to be published in January 2008 and launched in Washington with an international symposium, but when last September Pollard was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the production was accelerated, so that in October an advance copy was couriered to Cambridge in time for him to appreciate it. This massive catalogue of two volumes, running to more than 1,100 pages, is truly the crown to a distinguished numismatic career.
There was another side to Pollards life, as a passionate defender of the civic landscape in Cambridge. In 1963 he had refused to give up his rented studio room in Ram Yard (the site of the present Park Street car park), remaining there even as the bulldozers started pulling the walls down. Through bodies such as the Cambridge Preservation Society, he campaigned against the Lion Yard and the Kite developments in the city, and influenced many others. He was a longstanding and effective member, and from time to time chairman, of the Listed Buildings Panel and its successor, the Design and Conservation Committee, which vets planning applications for Cambridge City Council. He was Chairman of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and a member of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain. At Wolfson College, of which he had been a Fellow since 1967, he served as librarian during the sixteen years leading up to the construction of the new Lee Library.
A striking figure, Pollard will be remembered for his elegant italic handwriting since Sir Sydney Cockerells time museum attendants had been trained in calligraphy to write labels for the exhibits for his clear and precise speech, and most of all for his jovial smile and friendly manner. He and Maria were a devoted couple, and his final illness, though short, was heart-rending, as she herself was battling with the terminal stages of a cancer, which took her just three weeks before him.
Sir Howard Montagu Colvin, KBE, CBE, CVO, was elected a Fellow on 1 May 1980. Our Fellow Richard Hewlings, writing in the Independent, described him as the greatest architectural historian of his own time, and perhaps ever. He admired his seniors Sir Nikolaus Pevsner and Sir John Summerson, but both of them were indebted to him for the factual basis on which their judgements were formed; revising Summersons 1945 Georgian London in 2001, Colvin wrote [its] combination of brilliant thought and writing with factual carelessness is quite difficult to handle.
The intellectual model whom he regarded as almost faultless was Robert Willis, whose Architectural History of the University of Cambridge (1886) pioneered the solution of archaeological problems by absolute mastery of the documentation, yet Colvins six-volume History of the Kings Works (196382) alone was a greater achievement than Williss. In addition, Colvin produced what might have remained the authoritative Biographical Dictionary of English Architects 16601840 in 1954, had he not expanded it to include Scotland and the years 160060 in 1978 (with the title A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 16001840), and brought out a revised edition in 1995.
It is possible for the very well-informed and very diligent to find an error, or even two, in 1,264 double-column pages of 10-point text, but difficult and unusual. At the time of his death, Howard Colvin had nearly completed proof-reading the fourth version of this astonishing work, whose versions since 1954 have been the starting point of all historical research on the architecture of early modern Britain.
After war service with the RAF in Malta, Colvin was appointed an assistant lecturer at UCL, and in 1948 he obtained a Fellowship at St Johns College, Oxford, where he remained for the rest of his life, as Tutor (194878), Librarian (195084) and Emeritus Fellow (19872007). As Tutor, he taught the regular Oxford history syllabus, but he managed to add a special paper on English architectural history 16601720, then the only form of art history available to Oxford undergraduates, for which he was rewarded by a Readership in 1965. Oxford respected his productivity and meticulous scholarship, but, for long without art historians of its own, may not have realised that he was even more respected outside its walls; he was never given a chair.
Meanwhile he had a public service career in parallel. He was a commissioner of the Royal Fine Art Commission (196272), a commissioner of the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments for England (196376), a member of the Historic Buildings Council for England (197089), its chairman (19889) and chairman of one of its sub-committees (197089), a commissioner of the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland (197789), president of the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (197981), a commissioner of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (19818), a member of the reviewing committee on the Export of Works of Art (19823) and a commissioner of English Heritage (19849).
The anonymously written obituary in The Times also records that Howard Colvins articles in Country Life on Calke Abbey were the touchstone of the campaign in 1983 to save this great, yet virtually unknown, country house in Derbyshire from break-up and when one peer rashly suggested it was full of skiploads of junk, Colvin replied famously suggesting that he look closer at a collection which includes Bronze Age swords, silver by Paul Delamerie, 18th-century Chinese silk hangings in mint condition, and an autograph musical score by Haydn.
Professor Andrea Carandini, who claimed last month to have discovered the cave of the Lupercal, the shrine to Romes legendary founders, Romulus and Remus, has further enriched his story by hypothesising that the Basilica of SantAnastasia was deliberately built close to the recently rediscovered Lupercal shrine as a way of Christianising the pagan site.
The Council of Nicaea, convened by the Emperor Constantine in AD 325, fixed the dates of important Christian festivals and selected 25 December as the date for the Nativity to coincide with the popular pagan festival of Saturnalia. SantAnastasia is said to have been built just after the Council of Nicaea and to have been the place where the Feast of the Nativity was first celebrated on the new date of 25 December: Carandini believes this is no accident, and that the location of the Lupercal explains the siting of SantAnastasia, the first church to rise not on the ancient citys outskirts, but on the Palatine Hill, the centre of power and religion in imperial Rome. Romes archaeological superintendent, Angelo Bottini, said Carandinis hypothesis was evocative and coherent and helps us understand the mechanisms of the passage from paganism to Christianity.
and from the Courtauld Institute
An ivory diptych of the Nativity and Last Judgment, long considered to be a neo-Gothic work of the nineteenth century, will go on display at the Courtauld Institute, at Somerset House, in its true guise as a medieval masterpiece. Carbon-14 dating tests have now placed it firmly in the twelfth or thirteenth century. The Courtauld Institutes John Lowden said that its provenance was unknown, the work was unlike any other, and its resemblance to later Renaissance work meant that art historians had previously regarded it with some suspicion. Professor Lowden said: It is really beautiful, extraordinarily detailed and lively. It draws you in to construct a narrative.
The diptych is one of forty-five fine medieval ivories that will be on view at the Courtauld from 10 January to 9 March 2008. They come from the collection formed by the late Kenneth Thomson, Lord Thomson of Fleet and Northbridge (19232006), which is destined for the new Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) in Toronto, Canada, which is in the final phase of a major rebuilding programme led by the architect Frank Gehry.
As well as religious carvings, the collection includes a fifteenth-century ivory comb, decorated with a four-wheeled carriage drawn by a horse and a mule, which is transporting two couples to the mythical fountain of youth, where rejuvenated couples are depicted frolicking in the waters, the ladies naked save for their elaborate hairdos.
A catalogue of the medieval ivories and works of art in the Thomson collection, co-written by Professor John Lowden and our Fellow John Cherry, will be published later this year, to coincide with the reopening of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
The end of the year is an opportunity for retrospective and summation, and two recently published lists of the years most important archaeological rediscoveries have included projects connected with our Society. Archaeology magazines Top 10 Discoveries of 2007 includes a project led by Cambridge University archaeologist Joan Oates and partly funded by the Society looking into the origins of Tell Brak, in north-eastern Syria, the site of one of the worlds oldest cities. Analysis of pottery sherds from recent excavations here suggests that the city grew from the amalgamation of previously separate villages, with people moving in to the gaps and eventually filling the hole in the middle, rather than, as once assumed, growing from a central settlement that expanded outwards. Thus at least one ancient city is now known to have grown organically, rather than having been planned by some form of authority.
In its runners-up list of 2007s other most important finds, the magazine features the work of Fellow Matthew Spriggs and colleagues at the Australian National University and the Vanuatu National Museum in excavating the Lapita cemetery at Teouma, on the south coast of the island of Efate. Visiting the UK for the Societys Tercentenary celebrations, Matthew was interviewed by our Fellow Mike Pitts for British Archaeology magazine, where he explained how travels in India and China during his Oxbridge gap year kindled an interest in Pacific archaeology, which led him to a PhD on the ancient landscapes of Vanuatu, then to teaching Pacific archaeology in Hawaii (a great place to live, but its very hard to get any work done the lifestyle is just too good!) and from there to the Australian National University.
In the same interview, Matthew explains the fascination with Vanuatu: The big issue is where does the Lapita culture come from? Is it primarily the same people who have been around the New Guinea-Solomons area for 40,000 years, or does it represent a major migration that is primarily south-east Asian? DNA analysis of the human remains from the Teouma cemetery might well provide some answers during 2008, and the local people are as interested in the answer, says Matthew, as professional archaeologists: they want to know Are these our ancestors?
Matthew sees similar questions relating to origins and ancestry in the post-Roman archaeology of Britain, the other subject he teaches at ANU, and is blunt in rejecting the fashionable belief that fashions and styles migrated to Britains shores in the Anglo-Saxon period rather than people: The total language shift from Celtic to Anglo-Saxon, thats not usually how languages meet I think there has to be a big immigration.
Looking forward to 2008 and beyond
Several must-see exhibitions are on the horizon, starting with Alfred the Great: warfare, wealth and wisdom at the Winchester Discovery Centre, the citys new combined library and arts centre in Jewry Street, from 2 February to 27 April, which will display artefacts from the British Museum, the Ashmolean, the British Library and the V&A, amongst others, to tell the story of the great English king who lies buried in the citys cathedral.
The National Gallery has two exhibitions this year of interest to antiquaries: Pompeo Batoni (20 February to 18 May) will show the work of the celebrated painter dubbed the last of the Old Masters and a favourite with the grand tourists of the eighteenth century, while The Renaissance Portrait will feature work from Van Eyck to Titian from 15 October 2008 to 18 January 2009. During the summer, Tate Britain hosts The Lure of the East: British Orientalist painting from 4 June to 25 August 2008.
The British Museums Round Reading Room is the venue from 24 July to 26 October of an exhibition devoted to the Emperor Hadrian: empire and conflict while later in the year, Babylon: city of wonder (13 November 2008 to 15 March 2009) will focus on the city under Nebuchadnezzar (reigned 604 to 562 BC).
Looking further ahead still, our Fellow Patrick Green, Chief Executive Officer at Museum Victoria, in Melbourne, Australia, has announced that the museum will host an exhibition called A Day in Pompeii from 26 June to 11 October 2009. This exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Roman treasures telling the story of daily life in the ancient city from food and dining, commerce and business, medicine, religious beliefs, burial practices, to private residences and gardens, and luxury and beauty, Patrick says.
Patrick adds that he is already in contact with a number of Fellows who are active in Pompeii studies but is keen to reflect a wide range of current research in the exhibition and would be pleased to hear from Fellows for that purpose.
Oxford University Continuing Education events 2008
Pompeii also features in the tempting array of courses and events being mounted by the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education during 2008, with a day school on 23 February 2008 led by our Fellow Penelope Allison devoted to Pompeii: excavations past and present.
Other events likely to appeal to Fellows are (with the names of the Director of Studies in brackets): Megalithic monuments from Orkney to Brittany (Chris Scarre, FSA) on 29 and 30 March; The beginnings of prehistory: the contribution of Sir John Evans (18231908) (Arthur MacGregor, FSA) on 19 April; The British Iron Age: new perspectives (Gary Lock, FSA), on 3 to 5 October; Saving the Victorians: changes in the study of the nineteenth century, 19582008 (Paul Barnwell, FSA, and Colin Cunningham of the Victorian Society, with a keynote lecture from our Fellow Gavin Stamp on the role of the Victorian Society as a force for change), on 9 to 11 May.
For a brochure detailing the full years programme, send an email to [email protected].
There will be more future-scoping (also known as crystal-ball gazing) at the British Museum later this year when Salons editor will be chairing a debate on The future of the past, as part of the Archaeology 2008 Festival on 9 and 10 February, with Fellows David Miles, Peter Hinton and Tim Schadla-Hall among the star cast of speakers lined up to participate. The two-day festival organised by the Current Archaeology editorial team of Andrew Selkirk, FSA, Lisa Westcott, Neil Faulkner, Nadia Durrani and Christopher Catling, FSA was launched in October 2007 and within three months had sold 300 tickets, confirming that there is a popular audience for a festival based on entertaining and well-crafted papers on new archaeological discoveries and ideas from around the world.
In fact, it is a safe prediction for 2008 that the market for popular archaeology will continue to grow: the travel supplements of the major UK newspapers have been reporting that cultural tours, led by knowledgeable guides, are the fastest growing sector of the tourism industry.
What is more, cultural tourism need no longer even involve travel, except in the mind: the Daily Telegraph is currently advertising a weekend in Warwickshire during which participants will be entertained by a series of high-profile historians lecturing on themes as diverse as the story of Charles Is execution to the life of the British soldier on the Western Front in the First World War. For two nights accommodation, plus meals and lectures, participants will happily pay £375 per person. Festivals of literature, science, history and music are big business in the UK, and it is good to see archaeology now joining the list.
British Archaeological Awards 2008
Also celebrating archaeological excellence in its many different forms terrestrial and maritime fieldwork, excavations, popular and scholarly books, film, ITC and other media the British Archaeological Awards will be presented this year at the British Museum on 10 November. The awards depend for their success on nominations, so get ready to put your favourite projects forward once the awards are officially launched in March as usual there will be a closing date in June to allow the judges time over the summer to read and visit and convene to make those difficult decisions. Full details will be posted in Salon once they are available.
The European Archaeological Heritage Prize 2008
The European Association of Archaeologists instituted the European Archaeological Heritage Prize in 1999. An independent committee awards the prize annually to an individual, institution or government (local or regional) for an outstanding contribution to the protection and presentation of the European archaeological heritage. Previous winners include Manuel Carrilho (Minister of Culture, Portugal, 1999), Margareta Biörnstad (State Antiquarian of Sweden, 2000), Otto Braasch (Germany, 2001), Henry Cleere, FSA (United Kingdom, 2002), Viktor Trifonov (Russia, 2003), the Illicit Antiquities Research Centre (IARC) (Europe, 2004), Kristian Kristiansen (Denmark/Sweden, 2005), John Coles, FSA (United Kingdom, 2006) and Siegmar von Schnurbein (Germany, 2007).
The prize for 2008 will be awarded during the Annual Meeting of the EAA in Valletta, Malta, on Wednesday 17 September 2008. Nominations may be made by members of the EAA, professors and heads of departments of archaeology in European universities and institutes, directors of governmental heritage management organisations and agencies in European countries (members of the Council of Europe) and non‐governmental archaeological, heritage and professional organisations in European countries. Nominations, with full citations, should be sent to the EAA Secretariat, c/o Institute of Archaeology CAS, Letenská 4, 118 01 Prague 1, Czech Republic, or by email to [email protected] by 1 May 2008.
DCMS appoints our Fellow Neil MacGregor as cultural ambassador
It is good to see that the new Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport has a more mature understanding of the value of heritage than some of his predecessors. In recent years, Government targets for the heritage have shown an obsession with the number of under-represented groups visiting museums and historic sites targets that hardly reflect the rich and varied contribution that heritage makes to society and the economy.
Now, though, James Purnell has recognised that heritage has a role to play in international relations, and has appointed our Fellow Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, as the UK Governments first cultural ambassador, with a budget of £3m to be used to develop cultural ties with politically sensitive countries perhaps not Zimbabwe, at this stage, but quite possibly Sudan, where British Museum staff are expected to help archaeologists in Khartoum exhibit pottery and fabrics from the upper Nile ranging in date from 2000 BC to the medieval period.
Impressed by the British Museums successes in negotiating major exhibitions of cultural material from Iran and China, the Government has apparently recognised that culture and art may foster ties where diplomacy cannot. We live in a shrinking world with more contact between cultures and countries than ever before, James Purnell said: Londons museums are one of the best places in the world to understand those different cultures. But we can deepen that understanding by creating connections with other museums around the world.
Neil MacGregor responded to the appointment by saying: The point of this is to foster global communication. Museums can reach very large numbers and the contacts go on despite political ups and downs. The programme will include the loan of curators from the UK to developing countries to give advice and training in the latest display and preservation techniques and the loan of artefacts from British collections to the countries from which they were originally acquired.
Immunity from seizure law passed to enable Royal Academy show to go ahead
The heavily publicised on/off exhibition of French and Russian Master Paintings 18701925 from Moscow and St Petersburg now looks likely to go ahead at the Royal Academy in January after all, following the announcement that James Purnell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, will fast-track new legislation on 7 January 2008 providing for immunity from seizure for objects that are loaned from overseas for temporary exhibitions in approved galleries in the United Kingdom.
This will ensure that the works from Russia, many of which were seized from private owners during the post-Revolutionary era in Russia, will be immune from claims under UK law from the descendants of the original owners. Such legislation already exists in many parts of Europe, and the paintings destined for the Royal Academy exhibition are currently on show in Düsseldorf, Germany. A spokeswoman for the Royal Academy said the show was now expected to open on schedule on 26 January, and that the Royal Academy was grateful to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for making the exhibition possible.
Campaigners seeking to save and conserve the Diolkos, the paved road constructed around 600 BC and used to transport ships by land over the Isthmus of Corinth, have sent out a New Year message emphasising the urgency of their cause. Pictures on the petition website show that the western end of the Diolkos, which has been left open to the elements since its excavation in 1960, has collapsed into the sea. They invite supporters to sign the petition which calls on the Greek government to help preserve this important monument; 5,786 people have signed so far and the target is 7,000.
Salon 178 reported on the Magna Carta exhibition at the Bodleian Library and said that there were further copies in the House of Lords and Lincoln Cathedral, amongst other places. These copies have a habit of wandering: our Fellow Edmund King wrote to say that the House of Lords copy is now on display in the Museum of London, while Fellow Philip Priestley says that the Lincoln Cathedral copy is now owned by Lincolnshire County Council and is on display in the Norman castle at Lincoln though Fellow Richard Sharp believes that the Lincoln copy was actually retrieved from the castle a couple of years ago and was back in the cathedral when I last saw it!.
Ron Shoesmith sends news from Hereford that the cathedrals 1217 copy of the Magna Carta (one of the finest of the eight oldest that survive) can normally be seen in the Mappa Mundi and Chained Library Exhibition, though this is currently closed until the end of January for its annual clean; not only does the Hereford Magna Carta survive in very good condition compared to some copies, it is the only one known to survive along with an early version of a Magna Carta users manual, a small document that was sent with the Magna Carta with instructions for the Sheriff of the county on observing the conditions outlined in the document.
Edmund King and Richard Sharp both sing the praises of the Sothebys catalogue prepared by Fellow Nick Vincent and Hugh Doherty for the sale in New York on 18 December 2007 at which the Buckinghamshire Magna Carta of 1297, the only copy of the Magna Carta in private ownership, was sold for £10.6m ($21.3m). The wonderful catalogue is itself worth a place in any library, says Edmund, while Richard says that it is particularly valuable for its fully illustrated survey of the archival and documentary evidences for Magna Carta in the thirteenth century, including reproductions of the seventeen surviving engrossments, and an account of related documents. The discussion of Magna Carta and America, and in particular of negotiations involving British governments in the possible gift of an engrossment to the American people, forms a fascinating coda, highly relevant to the circumstances of the sale. The catalogue, The Magna Carta, can be ordered from Sothebys in New York; price $44 at the gallery, $52 by US mail, $62 overseas; tel: (00) (1) 888 752 0002 or 541 322 4151.
The Sothebys sale seems to be heading for a happy ending: purchased by the Texan billionaire, Ross Perot, for $1.5m (£750,000) from the Earl of Cardigan in 1984, this copy was on loan to the National Archives in Washington prior to its recent sale; the new owner, US businessman David Rubenstein, says he intends to return the document to the National Archives, where it will lie alongside the Declaration of Independence and the US constitution.
Mappa Mundi joins UNESCO register
The Hereford Mappa Mundi of c 1300, which Hereford Cathedral tried to sell for £7m in 1988, but which was kept in Hereford after Sir John Paul Getty donated £3m, has just been added to the UNESCO register of the worlds most important historical documents. UNESCOs so-called Memory of the World International Register consists of a list of library collections and archive holdings of world significance; it consists of 158 collections in 67 countries, ranging from early Gospels to the archives of Alfred Nobel, Swedenborg, Goethe and Ingmar Bergman. The UNESCO citation said that the Mappa Mundi, which depicts 420 cities and towns, as well as plants, animals, birds and Biblical events, is pivotal in our understanding of medieval cartography and sense of place. Welcoming the inclusion, our Fellow Christopher de Hamel described the Mappa Mundi as the most remarkable English manuscript of any kind and certainly the greatest extant thirteenth-century pictorial manuscript.
The Archaeologist: winter 2007 edition
The latest issue of The Archaeologist is out, published by the Institute of Field Archaeology, edited by our Honorary Secretary, Alison Taylor (from whom copies may be obtained), dedicated to the theme of climate change and the historic environment, from which Salons editor learns that beetles (specifically the nettle bug, Heterogaster urticae), tree rings, volcanic ash (tephra) and lentils (yes, lentils) are all good indicators of climate variation in the archaeological record.
Nettle bugs, so named because they are found almost entirely on stinging nettles, are apparently a very sensitive indicator of global warming, and their presence or absence in archaeological deposits from northern England tells us much about periods of warmth ominously, the nettle bug has become very common again in Yorkshire since 1990 after an absence of 400 years, and has now even reached Scotland.
And lentils? Warm summers and mild winters are ideal for their cultivation and guess what: their presence in the archaeological record in the form of charred remains at rural sites in southern, eastern and central England correlates pretty precisely to the presence of nettle bugs in the north, indicating periods of climatic warming in the period AD 800 to 1350, peaking towards the end of the tenth century, and their absence after 1300, during the lead in to the Little Ice Age of the sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries.
Two other climate related stories have been in the news recently. Newspapers reported this week that fishermen in Devon caught record numbers of anchovy between Christmas and New Year, brought in by warm ocean currents. Anchovies are usually found in the Mediterranean and fetch about £2,000 per ton ten times the value of the Brixham fishermens usual catch of sprats, and because there are no quotas for anchovies in British waters, the boats can land as many as they can. Jim Portus, the chief executive of the South West Fish Producers Organisation, said: It is relatively unusual for anchovies to be in the English Channel. The last time they were here in any quantity was about twenty years ago.
Jim Portus said the current anchovy harvest was a seasonal phenomenon, related to the weather cycle known as the North Atlantic Oscillation, which brings warm water up to the British Isles from Portuguese and Spanish waters, but a report published in the journal Fisheries Research in November (Volume 87, Issues 23, pages 101262) suggests that such warm-water species as anchovy and black sea bream once thrived in northern waters. In a History of marine animal populations and their exploitation in northern Europe, an international group of fisheries ecologists and historians draw on archaeological material, tax accounts, church registers and account books of monasteries to present a picture of marine life in the North Sea, Wadden Sea, Baltic Sea and White Sea from 7000 BC to the present day.
Fish bones from prehistoric deposits in Denmark show that anchovy and black sea bream were common during the warm Atlantic period that lasted from around 7000 to 3900 BC. When the warm period ended, these species disappeared from the archaeological record. They also found an abundance of cod bones, suggesting that cod can survive in warmer waters and that the current collapse in the North Sea cod population is due to pollution and over-fishing rather than climate change.
Archival records from fishing communities around the Gulf of Riga dating from the seventeenth century also throw light on the Mini Ice Age. Two sub-periods of particularly severe cold were identified 167583 and 168596 when herring reacted to the severe cold by spawning later in the year, so that the fishing seasons started later and were shorter in duration, with substantially lower catches.
Windgather Press acquired by Oxbow
Oxbow Books Ltd has announced that on 6 December 2007 it acquired the Windgather Press, thus bringing together two publishers with close connections to the Society. Windgather is the publisher of the Societys Kelmscott monograph (William Morriss Kelmscott: Landscape and History), as well as the well-respected journal Landscapes, edited by Fellows David Austin and Paul Stamper, and of numerous books by Fellows on landscape themes. Oxbow, founded by our Fellow David Brown, sells, publishes and distributes books for the Society. Richard Purslow, Windgathers founder and Managing Director, becomes Oxbows Consultant Editor and will continue to develop the Windgather imprint under the Oxbow aegis.
Ian Burrow, Vice-President of Hunter Research, Inc, has been nominated as President-Elect of the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA), taking over as President in 2010 for a two-year term. The RPA plays a similar role to the Institute of Field Archaeologists in the UK. It currently has well over 2,000 members, mostly in the US but with a growing Canadian contingent, as well as two archaeologists in the UK (our Vice President Tim Darvill being one of them) and others across Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Ian says: Im honoured to have been elected, and look forward to contacts with fellow professionals across the pond on matters of mutual interest.
Jeremy Montagu has offprints of his article on Musical instruments in Hans Memlings paintings (Early Music 35:4, November 2007) and says that if any Fellow would particularly like one, they are welcome to contact me, preferably by email and, of course, with their address. A good many of the relevant paintings are illustrated, all in colour (the editor has been very generous to me!) but unfortunately the one on the cover (Last Judgement from Danzig) isnt included with the offprint, though one detail is.
Dukes of Dorchester, the same auctioneers who recently sold the Fra Angelico panels that our Fellow Michael Liversidge identified in the collection of an Oxford art historian, is holding an auction on 17 January 2008 of some 8,000 books from the collection of our late Fellow David Vessey, who died in 2002. A collector of books since the age of eight, David bequeathed many of the more significant items from his collection to Cambridge University Library. The residue is to be sold to raise funds for his widows charity, Advocates for Children, which provides advice and help to parents of children with disabilities to ensure that they receive appropriate educational services. Further information: [email protected].
Salon reported recently that our Fellow Nicholas Penny, newly appointed as Director of the National Gallery, would be faced with the considerable challenge of raising £100 million to acquire five Poussin paintings from his 1630s Sacraments series if the pictures, which have hung on the National Gallerys walls for some years on loan, were to be sold. No doubt to his relief, it was reported in mid-December that the owner of the paintings, the Duke of Rutland, had changed his mind and had withdrawn the paintings from sale. The Duke said that the Poussins will stay at the National Gallery for the next three to five years; at some point we might bring them back to Belvoir Castle. They are certainly not going on the market in the foreseeable future.
Niamh Whitfield writes to sing the praises of the recently published volume on The Roscrea Conference: commemorating forty conferences 19872007 at Mount St Joseph Abbey, edited by George Cunningham, published by Roscrea People, Co Tipperary, Ireland, 2007. The Roscrea conference has been held twice a year every year for the last twenty years, alternating between a spring conference on early medieval Ireland and an autumn one on the later Middle Ages in Ireland, based at the Cistercian monastery at Mount St Joseph, Roscrea. Niamh says that numerous FSAs have contributed over the years to a very enjoyable event, with excellent lectures, interesting field trips and lots of good times in the pub and the dining room.
As George Cunningham, the energetic organiser and editor of this volume says in his introduction, By any standards the list of lecturers and their topics over a twenty-year period reads like an overview of Irish scholarship; he recalls that the theme of the very first meeting held in November 1987 was The Cistercians in Ireland and it was held to launch Fellow Roger Stalleys book The Cistercian Monasteries of Ireland (Yale University Press, 1987), while the very diverse topics addressed in the handsomely produced and well-illustrated volume include aspects of early Irish castles, of music and liturgy in the medieval Irish church, of Near Eastern influences on the early Irish and Scottish churches and on vernacular lives of the Irish saints.
From David Baker comes news that the Advisory Board for Redundant Churches (ABRC) has posted an important consultation document on its website (go to www.britarch.ac.uk/abrc/future.html and scroll to the base of the page). The ABRC will cease to exist on 31 March 2008 when new arrangements will be put in place to take over the ABRCs function in advising the Church Commissioners on the historic and archaeological interest, architectural and aesthetic quality, landscape value and importance of Anglican churches no longer in use.
ABRC members (who include several Fellows) have fought long and hard against abolition (their arguments are all documented on the same website), and feel strongly that the new arrangements are under-resourced and likely to create conflicts of interest. They have made use of the Advisory Boards remaining time by documenting the principles that have underpinned their work over the last thirty-eight years (the Board was founded in 1969) and hope to bequeath a legacy of advice in the form of criteria for judging whether Anglican churches should be closed, vested in (or devested from) the Churches Conservation Trust, given alternatives uses or even demolished. Board members hope that all stakeholders in historic parish churches will read these criteria and send comments to our Fellow Jeffrey West, Secretary to the Advisory Board, by the end of March.
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland launches its new website
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland has launched a significantly enhanced website), which records details of the Societys events alongside recent news from the historic environment sector, as well as providing access to recent Newsletters and volumes of the Proceedings. From the new site Salons editor learns that Oliver Rackham, OBE, FBA, Honorary Professor of Historical Ecology, University of Cambridge, will be giving a lecture on 11 February 2008 at 6pm in the National Museum of Scotlands lecture theatre on What makes Scottish woodland history special?. The Society also plans two international conferences in the near future: one in Winterthur Museum, Delaware, in the United States of America on the topic of Scottish transatlantic material culture, and the other in Edinburgh on The late Bronze Age and Iron Age of Scotland in their European setting.
London Roman Art Seminars 2008
Supported by the Institute of Classical Studies, Royal Holloway University of London, and the Courtauld Research Forum, the following seminars will be held at 5.30pm in Seminar Room 1, Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London. All are welcome; for further information contact our Fellow Amanda Claridge.
14 January, Roger Ling, FSA (University of Manchester): Theseus at the Gates of the Labyrinth: interpreting a Pompeian painting
28 January, Stacey McGowen (University of Oxford): And the Arch Marches On: changing iconographies on stone arches in the north-west Roman provinces
11 February, Katharina Lorenz (University of Nottingham): Image in Distress: the Meleager sarcophagus in Paris and the problem of visual narrative
25 February, Jan Stubbe Østergaard (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen): Ancient Sculptural Polychromy: research status and ways forward
10 March, Jas Elsner (University of Oxford): Three Late Roman Boxes
28 April, Michel Meyer (Université Libre de Bruxelles): The Coherence of Roman Art: from religion to painting, sculpture and architecture
12 May, Jessica Hughes (University of Cambridge): Anatomical Votives in Italy
The Collected Poems of our Fellow Anthony Thwaite (Enitharmon Press) were warmly reviewed in the Sunday Times last month. The review reminded us that Thwaite, editor and defender of Philip Larkin, once resigned from the Booker panel [of which he was Chairman] because he thought the chosen winner [The Old Devils, by Kingsley Amis] was no good. Perhaps that was a response to Amiss own avowed aversion to poems about foreign cities and works of art, both of which feature prominently in Anthonys work, inspired as much of it is by history, archaeology and travel. The Sunday Times reviewer goes on to say that Thwaite is a fine comic poet an accomplished inheritor and adaptor and improviser [of poetic form], a knowledgeable historian of poetry [who] animates and illuminates what the title of one of his own memorably understated poems (quoting the Book of Proverbs) calls The Dust of the World.
The Invention of Spain: Anglo-Spanish cultural relations 17701870, by our Fellow David Howarth (Manchester University Press), analyses the response of British writers, collectors and artists to Spain and Spanish culture over a critical 100-year period, starting with the post-mortem analysis of the decline of the Spanish empire to be found in the works of such Scottish Enlightenment writers as William Robertson (in his History of Charles V) and Adam Smith (whose Wealth of Nations examines aspects of the economic decline of Spain as a cautionary tale of how not to do it). A section on the great historians of Catholic Spain, such as Motley, Froude and Stirling-Maxwell, tells us, so David argues, much about the development of the discipline of history and how it helped to define the particularly British version of nineteenth-century Protestantism. There is a chapter on travel, topography and the physical exploration of the peninsula followed by another on paintings of Spanish architecture, the countryside, Iberias dark-eyed beauties and bogus reconstructions of historical events that served to demonstrate and define clichés about Spanishness. In sum, David argues that the British never really understood Iberia on its own terms but rather, saw themselves reflected in a Spanish glass.
One test of a books value is whether the publisher keeps it in print: more than twenty years after its first publication, Pearson/Prentice Hall has just published the seventh edition of An Introduction to the Bible: a journey into three worlds by our Fellow Christian E Hauer, Jr and William A Young, respectively Emeritus Professor of Religion and Archaeology and Professor of Religious Studies at Westminster College, Fulton, MO, USA. The book is a primer for those with little or no previous exposure to the academic study of the Bible, exploring the Bibles literary, historical and contemporary contexts (the three worlds of the title). The book draws on the latest and best works in Biblical scholarship to recount the history of events to which the Bible alludes, and to encompass the original historical contexts surrounding the Bibles composition, collection, copying, passing on and interpretation of the books through time and the process through which the books became Scriptural.
From the grand sweep of the entire Biblical canon to the detail of one Old Testament text, our Fellow Stephanie Dalleys new book, Esthers Revenge at Susa (Oxford University Press), shows why the names of the chief characters in the Biblical Book of Esther are those of Mesopotamian deities, and why the Hebrew text has a far greater proportion of Akkadian loan-words than any other Old Testament book. Based on the fruits of excavation in Iraq and Syria, Stephanie argues that the story told by the Book of Esther reflects real events that took place in seventh-century BC Assyria (for example, Ashurbanipals sack of Susa) which were subsequently mythologised as divine acts and Judaized in ways that blend pagan tradition (rites for the deity Ishtar of Nineveh whose cultic calendar is preserved in some of the dates given in the Hebrew text) with the Hebrew rites of Purim.
Our Fellow John Pickles has performed a service to fellow antiquaries and students of antiquarianism by producing a new facsimile edition of W M Palmers book William Cole of Milton, originally published in 1935 and long out of print. The importance of Dr Palmers book is not just that it comprises the best biography of William Cole, the tireless eighteenth-century Cambridge antiquary (a man who, with all his oddities was a worthy and valuable man; Michael Lort to Horace Walpole), but also that it includes seventy-five photographs, engravings, and reproductions of drawings from Coles manuscripts and substantial annotated transcripts of Coles Parochial Antiquities of Cambridgeshire. John Pickles has added a short introduction and bibliography, and copies (softback with laminated covers) are available from him at 27 Cavendish Road, Cambridge CB1 3AE (emails: [email protected]), for £18, which includes post and packing.
Hot off the press from Yale University Press, in the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art series, is Design and Plan in the Country House: from castle donjons to Palladian boxes by our Fellow Andor Gomme and Alison Maguire, which uses the plans of some 180 houses in Britain and Ireland, from fortified medieval tower houses to eighteenth-century country houses, as clues to the daily lives of their residents, and what that arrangement of rooms for official and private activities tells us about the owners, their ideas of themselves and their roles in the community.
The Society is very grateful to the donors of the following gifts, given to the Societys Library in the period from October to December 2007.
From the authors, Richard Bryant and Carolyn Heighway, Fellows, The Tomb of Edward II, 2007
From Sir David Wilson, Fellow, The Nineteenth-century Process of Musealization in Hungary and Europe, edited by Ernö Masori and Gabor Klaniczay, 2006
From Professor Richard Harrison, Fellow, 250 monographs on the Copper and Bronze Age archaeology of Spain and Portugal, donated in memory of Gloria Moreno Lopez; and Majaladares (Spain), by Richard Harrison, 2007
From the author, Santina Levey, Fellow, The Embroideries of Hardwick Hall, 2007
From the author, David Breeze, Fellow, Invaders of Scotland, 2000
From Vincent Megaw, Fellow, Entre Iberos y Celtas, by Gustavo Garcia Jiménez, 2006
From the author, Carola Hicks, Fellow, The Kings Glass, 2007
From the author, Blaise Vyner, Fellow, Fylingdales: wildlife and archaeology, 2007
From the author, Pamela Slocombe, Fellow, Architects and Building Craftsmen with Work in Wiltshire, 1996 and 2006, and Wiltshire Buildings Record monographs 1, 2 and 4, 19982001
From the author, Mike Baillie, Fellow, New Light on the Black Death: the cosmic connection, 2006
From the editor, John Williams, Fellow, The Archaeology of Kent to AD 800, 2007
The bequest of Ralph Hoddinott, late Fellow, Pipers Places, by Richard Ingrams and John Piper, 1983; Journal of a Landscape Painter in Albania and Illyria, 1851; Views in the Seven Ionian Islands, by Edward Lear, 1979 (facsimile of the 1863 edition); A Voyage into the Levant (2 vols), by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, 1718
From the author, Fraser Hunter, Fellow, Beyond the Edge of the Empire: Caledonians, Picts and Romans, 2007
From Corinne Bennett, Fellow, Descripción breve del Monasterio de S Lorenzo el Real del Escorial, by Francisco de los Santos, 1607
From Jill Franklin, Fellow, The Life of Charlemagne, by Einhard, translated by Lewis Thorpe, 1970
From Cecil Humphrey-Smith, Fellow, a collection of armorial bookplates
From the author, Chris Green, Fellow, John Dwights Fulham Pottery, 1999
From the author, Henry Summerson, Fellow, An Ancient Squires family: the history of the Aglionbys c 11302002, 2007
From the Trustees of the Friends of Somerset Churches and Chapels, Somerset Churches and Chapels: building repair and restoration, edited by Robert Dunning, Fellow, 2007
From the author, Leonard Saunders, A Stonehenge Contemporary: the six development phases of Silbury Hill, 2006 and other papers
From the editor, Hilary Thomas, Fellow, Historic Gardens of the Vale of Glamorgan, 2007
From the author, Sir Nicholas Goodison, Fellow, Matthew Boultons Trafalgar Medal, 2007
From the editor, Michael Jones, Fellow, Le Premier Inventaire du Trésor des Chartres des Ducs de Bretagne (1395), 2007; Fenêtres sur cous, exhibition catalogue, 1993; Commynes et les Italiens, by Joel Blanchard, 1993; Anne de Bretagne, exhibition catalogue, 2007
From The Mark Fitch Fund, The Illuminated Ark, by Joe Flatman, 2007
From the author, Jeremy Montagu, Fellow, The Origins and Development of Musical Instruments, 2007
From the editor, James Graham-Campbell, Fellow, The Archaeology of Medieval Europe, Vol I, 2007
From Michael Port, Fellow, The Nations Mantelpiece: a history of the National Gallery, by Jonathan Conlin, 2006
From Ian Jenkins, Fellow, The Antiquarian Society, a coloured engraving by George Cruikshank, 1812
From the editor, Paul Arthur, Fellow, Muro Leccere: alla Scoperta di una Terra Medievale, 2007
From the author, Arthur MacGregor, Fellow, Curiosity and Enlightenment, 2007
From the editor, Michael Farley, Fellow, The Watermills of Buckinghamshire, 2007
From Christopher Evans, Fellow, Past and Present: excavations at Broom, Bedfordshire 19962005, by Anwen Cooper and Mark Edmonds, 2007
From the authors, Dorothy Thorn and Jim Thorn, Fellow, The Four Seasons of Cyrene, 2007
From the author, Frank Greenaway, Fellow, Chymica Acta, 2007
From the author, Michael Fritz, Fellow, articles on medieval enamels and goldsmiths work, 19902003
From the author, Patricia Anawalt, Fellow, The Worldwide History of Dress, 2007
From the editor, John Pickles, Fellow, William Cole of Milton, by W M Palmer, 2007 (facsimile of the 1935 edition).
Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Director
Salary £30,000 to £35,000, closing date 21 January 2007
A motivated and enthusiastic person is sought as Director of the Society and Curator of its Wiltshire Heritage Museum and Library in Devizes. The Director will have curatorial responsibility for the collection, for academic research and the publications programme, and will manage twelve staff and a large team of volunteers, with budgetary, fundraising and marketing responsibility. For a job description and application pack, contact Karen Jones. For an informal discussion, call the Chairman, Bill Perry, on 01380 727369.