The Society of Antiquaries of Londons Online Newsletter (Salon) is a fortnightly digest of news from the heritage sector, focusing especially on the Society and its Fellows and the contribution that they make to public life through their many and varied activities. Like the intellectual salons of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe, it aims to amuse and to stimulate debate as well as to inform. A copy of Salons editorial policy can be found on the Societys website and feedback should be addressed to the Editor, Christopher Catling.
The meetings programme to July 2012 can be seen on the Societys website.
1 March 2012: Megalithic studies in Wales: a review, by Frances Lynch FSA
The Societys meeting on St Davids Day takes the form of a joint meeting with the Cardiff Archaeological Society and the Monmouthshire Antiquarian Association (the senior county archaeological society in Wales). It will be held at 5.15pm (and not at 5pm as previously advertised) in the Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre, Julian Hodge Study Centre, Colum Road, Cardiff CF10 3EU (part of the main Humanities block of the university: see the map on the Cardiff University website for the location. Fellows and guests are invited to a reception after the lecture, from 6.15pm to 7.30pm; those who wish to attend the reception are asked to inform Fellow Alan Aberg.
Summarising the paper that she will give, our Fellow Frances Lynch says: having been a participant in some of the major excavations of megalithic tombs in western Britain in the late 1960s, I will take a somewhat rueful look at new approaches and developments since then, and especially in the last twenty or thirty years. In a well-known group of monuments there has, until very recently, been little new factual data but efforts have been made to squeeze new insights from them and their surroundings and, perhaps more fruitfully, from a re-examination of excavation and museum records. Cadws splendidly old-fashioned and pragmatic project on Prehistoric Funerary and Ritual Sites has brought in some new sites so that at least one group of tombs, the Cotswold Severn long cairns, is now ready for some re-assessment.
8 March 2012: Inigo Jones, the Surveyors of the Works and the Parliament House, by Alisdair Hawkyard FSA
Neither of the Houses of Parliament figure prominently in the canon of works undertaken in the early seventeenth century by Inigo Jones, but close scrutiny of the works accounts, taken together with a series of prints, drawings, medals and enamels, yields a far more substantial picture. Architectural historian Alisdair Hawkyard explores how Joness lost buildings can be reconstructed from a variety of sources. The picture that emerges reveals a team of architects anxious to resolve problems of design and open to innovation.
15 March 2012: Digging at the Gateway: archaeological discovery on the East Kent Access Road, by Ken Welsh and Simon Mason
Kent County Councils new road link, the East Kent Access Phase 2, crosses the Isle of Thanet, one of the richest archaeological areas in Britain, long recognised as a gateway to the country for new peoples, cultures, ideas and trade. The landscape has important historical associations, including the Claudian invasion at nearby Richborough, the arrival of the Saxons and of Christianity, through St Augustines mission. The building of the road offered an unparalleled opportunity to explore the lives and customs of the people who lived in this important gateway, the contacts they made and the impact that these historically important events made upon them.
This paper describes the approach to one of the largest excavations in Britain in 2010, covering almost the entire road route and discovering a wealth of important archaeological remains. It presents the highlights of the fieldwork, including monuments dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, a landscape rich in settlements, enclosures, trackways and burials from the Iron Age to the Saxon period, a medieval farmstead and the defences of a Battle of Britain airfield.
Government to put local heritage at the heart of the curriculum
The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is to announce this week that he wants schoolchildren to get to know their local heritage and how it relates to the story of England. English Heritage is to receive £2.7m over three years from the Department for Education for delivering the Heritage Schools initiative, under which heritage brokers, experts in heritage education, will be recruited to work with schools. Their role will be to ensure that teachers understand the opportunities and potential of their local historic environment for delivering an engaging curriculum as a core part of the school timetable. Mr Gove believes that visiting and studying the physical remains of the rich, controversial and thrilling story of England will inspire pupils, parents and teachers to delve further into our rich island story, give children have a sense of pride in their local area, engage parents in their childrens learning and involve communities in the life of the school.
The proposal is the result of an independent review of cultural education led by Darren Henley, the managing director of Classic FM, due to be published this week. Darren Henley said: It is vital that the schools have teachers who recognise the importance of cultural education within their schools and have the training, experience and tools to teach it to a high level. The impact great teachers and great teaching can have on a child’s engagement with cultural education should never be underestimated. Every day in schools across the country, life-changing moments happen for children because of the intervention of a dedicated teacher.
Our Fellow Simon Thurley, Chief Executive of English Heritage, said: Outside every school there is a rich history. In the high street, the housing estate, the park, riverside and field, every town, city and village is full of places in which significant events have taken place. We want every child, their parents and teachers to enjoy and take pride in the heritage of their local area and to understand the part it played in the rich story of England. Our Heritage Schools initiative will bring history to life both in the classroom and out of it, weaving it into the life of the community and endowing present and future generations of children with a vivid understanding of the place in which they grew up.
English Heritage also said that heritage brokers would seek partnerships with local heritage organisations in delivering the Heritage Schools initiative; those organisations could include a local church, archive, after-school history club, local history or archaeology society, civic society or museum. The aim would be to build lasting relationships between these organisations and local schools.
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The future for Time Team: Philip Clarke, Executive Producer, responds
The last issue of Salon carried a report on the resignation from Time Team of our Fellow Mick Aston, along with extracts from a letter sent to Channel 4 by our Fellow Warwick Rodwell. Philip Clarke, Executive Producer, has written to Salon to reassure Fellows that Time Team remains as committed to archaeological excellence as ever and to remind us that several distinguished Fellows and archaeologists remain core to the programme and its integrity.
Many of us who work on Time Team were shocked and upset by the farrago of half-truths, fabrications, insults and allegations that surfaced in various media in early February as a result of a short, charming and uncontentious letter that Mick Aston wrote to British Archaeology, confirming his departure from Time Team and thanking all those who had worked with him. Mike Pitts (Editor of BA) reported on a subsequent telephone call with Mick. Mick spoke honestly of how he had not been happy with certain events on Time Team in 2010 and 2011. He said he regretted that in his view it was becoming a softer programme. He also confessed to being unhappy with his legacy at Bristol University and with the state of archaeology in Britain as a whole. Not really tabloid fodder!
The Daily Mail picked up the story. In the hands of the popular press, the team split angle hardened up and the reporter focused on the hiring of Mary Ann Ochota as co-presenter for Series 11. Mick himself had not mentioned her. In fact, the Mail published a fairly balanced piece, including a reference to Mary Anns archaeology degree and a quote saying that we were sorry to see Mick go but it had come as no great surprise. However, the Mail headline writer and picture editor had a different idea; they loved the Beauty and the Beast angle.
The rest of the Press picked up the headline not the content. They had Mick walking out and Mary Ann storming out after Micks statements. In fact, the producers, along with Channel 4, had decided that the introduction of a co-presenter alongside Tony had not really worked. Mary Ann knew before Christmas that she would not be continuing. Mick had been discussing his departure for months. Mary Ann herself never claimed that she was walking out.
Perhaps misled by this misreporting, Professor Rodwell then wrote to Channel 4 with what I can only characterise as unsubstantiated abuse, to the effect that there are no archaeologically competent people left on Time Team and that it has become a lightweight and irresponsible circus. On the contrary, both the archaeological team that appears on camera, and the support teams, such as that from Wessex Archaeology who assist with the excavation, recording and post-excavation analysis and publication, are experienced and highly skilled, as are the television production teams. Many people on both sides of the camera have been making Time Team for years and continue to do so. Since Micks period of ill health ten years ago he has appeared on some 60 per cent of the series episodes; other programmes have been made under the direction of Fellows Francis Pryor, Jackie McKinley, Neil Holbrook, Neil Faulkner and Miles Russell. In other words, Time Team continues to call on the services of some of the countrys best archaeologists, geophysicists, historians and all manner of other specialists.
Unsurprisingly we have had to make some budget cuts. In the depths of recession, Channel 4 reduced our budget by a relatively modest 12.5 per cent and caused some increased costs by asking us to relocate to Cardiff to help with their public service remit. However, the amount spent on the archaeology was reduced by a very marginal amount, itself proportionately less than the reductions to the filming costs. Sometimes small cuts can be the most painful and when coupled with other changes in this case various attempts to freshen up the look and feel of the programme it can feel like the sands are shifting too fast. But I believe anyone who actually watches all of the current series of Time Team will still feel the programme has its heart in the right place.
Time Team has never tried to best represent archaeology in Britain as Salon suggested. That is not its job. What Time Team has done is spend very large sums of Channel 4s money carrying out original pieces of archaeological evaluation and to make a TV programme of that process, which is entertaining, accessible and informative. Whilst enough people watch it, advertisers will come and Channel 4 will remain persuaded that the combination of public service and real income makes economic sense. Channel 4 is a not-for-profit company, but it receives no public subsidy. It earns its keep by competing and winning the battle for audiences. Audiences change, the competition changes. If programmes fail to change they die; the freedom to experiment is essential.
It is very hard to calculate accurately, but a reasonable estimate is that in 2011, the figure spent by Time Team on our original archaeological work was around £300,000. The same is planned again for 2012. I hope that Salon and its learned readers will not be campaigning for an end to this investment.
and heritage. The successful applicant must have completed their doctorate at the time of taking up the Fellowship on or around 1 October 2
More on archaeology in the media
For an account of how the Time Teams story took on a life of its own and became a fantasy story rather than one based on the facts reported by Mike Pitts in British Archaeology, see Down the paper chain, on Mikes own blog site, Digging Deeper; dont miss too Mikes description of the all-too-familiar agonies of trying to sort out his book collection, complete with charming pictures.
Meanwhile, Fellow Robin Derricourt is one of several Fellows who spotted a story in several newspapers last week claiming that the Queen of Shebas Gold Mines had been found in Ethiopia (this is in fact a site that has been known to archaeologists for more than seventy years, and that dates not from the 8th century BC, but from about AD 400).
Should we care about the misrepresentation of archaeology in the media, he asks? Once upon a time it was possible to argue that news is so ephemeral that it would be forgotten within seconds. Today, stories are passed on via the internet and social media and are endlessly repeated in new contexts, remaining accessible and visible via a search engine, so that anyone typing Queen of Sheba into Google will find a high-ranking link to a story headlined Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Shebas wealth; it seems very unlikely that a corrective story will ever appear; there are already 11,200 separate entries for this story listed by Google, and it can only be a matter of time before a version of the story becomes embedded in Wikipedia as fact, adding fog and confusion where there ought to be clarity.
Musing on this, our Robin commends an excellent book (La Dame Blanche et l’Atlantide: Ophir et le Grand Zimbabwe: Enquête sur un mythe archéologique, by Jean-Loïc Le Quellec) that warns of some of the difficulties when archaeologists are seduced into loose talk: where Henri Lhote let his Saharan rock art be described as Atlantean or Martian, or associated with mythical figures, and Abbé Breuil followed similar lines in the Sahara and also wrote of possible Minoans in southern Africa. Robins paper on the whole subject of quasi-archaeology, and whether it matters, will be published in Antiquity later this year.
On which subject, a new issue of Antiquity has just been published, with its usual list of must-read papers and reviews, including one called Deceiver, joker or innocent? Teilhard de Chardin and Piltdown Man, by J Francis Thackeray, who argues, after studying documents concerning Piltdown curated in the Natural History Museum in London, in the Teilhard de Chardin Foundation and in the Jesuit Archives (Vanves, Paris) that the Piltdown hoax was a piece of foolery in which Teilhard was involved, but that it went wrong to such an extent that those involved were reluctant to reveal that it was all intended as a joke.
Would you pay to be published?
In the leader in the March 2012 issue of Antiquity, the editor, our Fellow Martin Carver, asks readers to let him know what they think of a new open access journal publishing model. In this system, Martin writes, rigorous peer-review and editorial quality control remain in place, but the reader pays nothing: every article and all other output are available free on the internet. This minor economic miracle is pulled off by bringing in income from other channels; a typical scenario involves charging a fee to the authors of successful submissions, and it is this fee that pays for editing and production. The authors in turn obtain the money from their research councils or from other sources of grant-aid. The advantages of open access are considerable. The journals themselves will be able to budget more securely, authors will attract a greatly increased range of readers, university libraries will be able to save on subscriptions and readers will be provided with high-grade quality control combined with peer-reviewed output, free to everyone, everywhere. Please tell us what you think!
Call for Sussex University to rethink closure of Centre for Community Engagement
Fellow David Rudling, Convenor for Archaeology at the Centre for Community Engagement, is calling for support for a campaign urging senior management at Sussex University to think again about plans to close most of the Centres lifelong learning activities in July. Summer school activities, sign language classes and deaf studies will continue at the centre, but loss-making evening classes and part-time adult education courses will end, putting at risk the jobs of fifteen staff and 127 associate tutors.
Some 1,500 people have signed an online petition, arguing the need for the university to continue to provide educational opportunities for adult learners, part-time learners and the local community. Sussex currently subsidises this activity by some £350,000 from the fees paid by full-time students. Critics of the closure plan have called for a creative approach. Michael Farthing, Vice-Chancellor of Sussex, blamed Government policies regarding the funding of higher education.
Exhibition highlights milestones in British history
If you want to know how others see us, there is a flattering review of the Societys Boston exhibition in the online Art Daily magazine, explaining the background and the main themes of the exhibition. The site is worth a look just for the romantically lit watercolour by J M W Turner of Saint Augustines Gate, Canterbury, c 1793, from the Paul Mellon Collection. Further information can also be found on the website of the Yale Center for British Art, which has a slideshow of eighteen objects from the exhibition, and a calendar of related exhibition tours, lectures and film screenings. The exhibition continues until Sunday 27 May 2012, but if you were hoping to catch Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), you are too late; that was shown on 4 February. On the other hand, anyone visiting Boston in the next few weeks can catch Fellow Stephen Bann speaking on 11 April on Antiquaries speak out: objects and their histories as disclosed by John Bargrave and Bryan Faussett, and Fellow Lucilla Burn on 24 April, lecturing on Brethren of the quill: antiquaries and discoveries in eighteenth-century Cambridge.
Bronze Age boat back in the Tay Valley
The Carpow Bronze Age logboat, excavated in 2006, has returned to the Tay valley after six years of conservation treatment for display in the Perth Museum and Art Gallery, where the exhibition, The Carpow Bronze Age logboat, opens on 19 March 2012. The exhibition tells the story of the excavation and conservation of the boat, which, at 9m long, was too big to fit into a freeze-drying oven (unless flown to Tokyo) and so was sliced into three segments, soaked in Polyethylene glycol, freeze-dried and then re-joined. The other key element of the exhibition is an introduction to the Bronze Age context for the 3,000-year-old boat, which will be displayed alongside a collection of the Bronze Age metalwork (swords, dirk, spear-heads, axe-heads and other tools) recovered from the River Tay over a number of years from the stretch of the river between Perth and Newburgh. A series of dramatic paintings show how the boat could have been used for a variety of purposes, including one showing metalwork being offered to the river from the boat.
Thought for the day 1: Stonehenge
The main structure is a replica in stone of what was normally built in wood. They used the same techniques. The positioning of the main components is all about the construction of a framework, a building if you like, as the setting for ritual adventures that included the use of the bluestones brought over from Wales. Our Fellow Tim Darvill, quoted in the Guardian, responds to the idea that Stonehenge was intentionally built to create acoustic interference and auditory illusions.
Thought for the day 2: Universities
Asking ourselves What are universities for? may help remind us, amid distracting circumstances, that we all of us, inside universities or out are indeed merely custodians for the present generation of a complex intellectual inheritance which we did not create, and which is not ours to destroy. Stefan Collini, Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge, writing in his new book What Are Universities For? (Penguin, 2012)
Our colleagues in the Department of Coins and Medals at the British Museum are getting in early with a free exhibition that tells the story of the production of the medals for the London 2012 Games, from the mining of the metal to the creation of the designs by David Watkins and Lin Cheung and their production by the Royal Mint.
Historical context for these medals is provided by nineteenth- and twentieth-century objects highlighting Britains role in the creation of the modern Olympics and Paralympics. Olympian Games first took place in the Shropshire town of Much Wenlock in 1850, and these games greatly inspired Pierre de Coubertin, who attended the 1890 Wenlock games and founded the modern Olympic Games in 1896. The Paralympic Games derive from games held in 1948 at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Buckinghamshire, for people injured in the Second World War.
Congratulations to Fellows David Coke and Alan Borg whose excellent book on Vauxhall Gardens (Yale University Press, 2011) continues to garner awards, the latest being the prestigious John Brinckerhoff Jackson Book Prize for 2012 awarded by the (US) Foundation for Landscape Studies for a recently published book that has made a significant contribution to the study and understanding of garden history and landscape studies.
The Foundations citation says: In the first book on the subject for over fifty years, Alan Borg and David E Coke reveal the teeming life, the spectacular art, and the ever-present music of Vauxhall in fascinating detail. Borg and Cokes historical exposition of the entire history of the gardens makes a major contribution to the study of London entertainments, art, music, sculpture, class, and ideology. It reveals how Vauxhall linked high and popular culture in ways that look forward to the manner in which both art and entertainment have evolved in modern times.
Lives Remembered: David Nigel Griffiths and Barbara Harbottle
Photograph: Barbara at Corbridge in 1963; with thanks to our Fellow David Breeze
The Society has been informed of the death on 12 February 2012 of our Fellow The Ven Dr David Nigel Griffiths. We hope to have an obituary in a future issue of Salon.
We have also learned of the death of Barbara Harbottle on 19 February 2012, at the age of eighty. A memorial service has been arranged for 2pm on 7 March at St Nicholass Cathedral, Newcastle. Donations in her memory can be made either to the Scleroderma Society or to the Natural History Society of Northumberland. For further information, see the website of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle, of which Barbara was President from 1996 to 1998. After working in the School of Architecture at Newcastle University, she became Tyne and Wears first County Archaeologist, in which latter role she produced one of the most complete and accurate Sites and Monuments Record for any English county.
First and foremost a medieval archaeologist, she will long be remembered for her excavations throughout Newcastle, at Blackfriars, the Keep and Black Gate, as well as for discovering Milecastle 4 on Westgate Road. She also worked on sites in Northumberland at Newminster Abbey and in advance of the Kielder reservoir. She was an inspiring lecturer and brought many people into the Newcastle Societys fold through her adult education courses.
Lives Remembered: Paul Minet (1937−2012)
Painting: by Thomas Gainsborough of Paul Minet’s ancestor, Daniel Minet (172990), a gentleman well versed in the history and antiquities of the Kingdom, who was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of Antiquaries in 1767.
The following text consists of extracts from the obituary for our late Fellow Paul Minet that appeared in The Times on 25 February 2012.
In the words of Laurence Worms, President of the Council of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association, Paul Minet was the most widely known member of the trade of his generation. Paul Minet was a second-hand bookseller who spent much of his career trying to re-create the ideal browsing bookshop of his youth, an innovator burning with energy and ideas, generous to colleagues or supportive to newcomers, with a dry sense of humour and a characteristic half-smile and sideways glance when assessing the ideas of others.
Huguenot refugees from Normandy, the Minets arrived in Dover in 1685, where they flourished as bankers and brokers before moving on to London. They acquired considerable property in Kent and Middlesex, and in Camberwell, south London, where their ownership is marked by Minet Road and the Minet Library, an important collection on London history. Responsibility for the estate came to Paul Minets father from a distant and childless cousin, Susan, a Huguenot historian whose generosity had enabled the Society of Antiquaries to acquire and refurbish William Morriss Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire. The Minet estate is now administered by a family trust that sponsors inner-city projects.
Minet was justly proud of his French Protestant heritage, and was a generous benefactor to the 300-year-old French Hospital of La Providence, the Huguenot almshouses now settled in Rochester. He was elected a director of the charitys court in 1969, exactly 200 years after the first of his ancestors to serve on it. His greatest service to the hospital was bibliographical: the discovery in the basement of University College Library in Bloomsbury where the combined library of the French Hospital and the Huguenot Society is housed of albums containing several hundred watercolours by Thomas Rowlandsons friend, John Nixon (17511818). These were fascinating for their depictions of Regency life but, with two small exceptions retained by the hospital, of no Huguenot interest. A series of sales between 1973 and 1986 at Christies where by chance they were catalogued by a future director of the hospital raised £150,000, which helped to pay for two new flats for the disabled, and a common room on hospital land adjoining Rochesters Roman city wall. In 1985 a six-month exhibition, The Quiet Conquest, celebrating the tercentenary of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, was held at the Museum of London under the patronage of the Queen. It was funded by the Huguenot Society, but almost half the costs were met by the Minet family and trusts.
None of Minets attempts to set up various businesses in the book trade had any lasting success until he married Sheila, née Mosley, in 1970 and settled in a former rectory at Chicheley in Buckinghamshire. From there he founded the Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association (PBFA) and launched his trade magazine, the Antiquarian Book Monthly Review. A print works was a natural concomitant, which he used for reprints of unjustly forgotten books, including several on lace, and A Treatise on Domestic Pigeons (1st edn, 1765). The PBFA still flourishes, and the Review, after several changes of name, ownership and form, continues on the internet.
Minets subsequent ventures included shops in Piccadilly, Sackville Street, St Martins Court and St Katharine Docks and a venture in Hay-on-Wye and in time the business became self-sufficient. Drawing a comfortable income from the family trust, he withdrew for a while, taking a sabbatical with his wife and four daughters in Greece from 1983 until 1986, during which he wrote his first book of memoirs, Late Booking, published in 1989. Bookdealing for Profit followed in 2000. On their return, there were more ventures, notably the Baggins Book Bazaar in Rochester, said to be the largest second-hand bookshop of its kind in England, culminating in the Ticehurst Bookshop in East Sussex, close to his final home at Wadhurst and his headquarters for the last twenty years of his life. Further publications included the periodicals The British Diarist he kept a diary for many years and Royalty Digest, the latter linked to an international monarchist society that continues to hold convivial annual weekends at Ticehurst.
plicants should
Two more fine examples of antiquarian hoaxes have come from Fellows. Sally Badham forwarded one of the earliest examples, the engraving shown here dated 1756, entitled The Puzzle and dedicated to the penetrating geniuss [sic] of Oxford, Cambridge, Eaton [sic], Westminster, and the Learned Society of Antiquarians [sic]. The joke in this case depends on rearranging the letters of the epitaph (which records the burial place of a tripe seller of Impington and his consort) to create the appearance of an ancient Latin inscription, an effect deliberately enhanced by the acanthus leaves growing to the left of the tombstone.
Peter Pickering then reminds us of Sir Walter Scotts The Antiquary, where Mr Oldbuck shows his friend a ditch at the Kaim of Kinprunes which enclosed Agricolas encampment at his final battle with the Caledonians, only to have an old beggar explain that he was there when it was constructed as a shelter for a wedding. Mr Oldbuck said he had dug a trench there and found a stone bearing a sacrificing vessel and the letters A D L L which may stand, without much violence, for Agricola Dicavit Libens Lubens. (Mr Oldbuck’s friend cites as a parallel that Dutch antiquaries claim Caligula as the founder of a lighthouse, on the sole authority of the letters C C P F, which they interpret Caius Caligula Pharum Fecit.) The beggar explains that the supposed vessel was a ladle cut as a joke at the bridegroom, and the letters stood for Aiken Drums Lang Ladle.
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As for the test that Fellow Norman Hammond set for Fellows, Fellow Richard Barber took no time at all to identify Robert Masters, BD, FSA (171498), as a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Richards own college), and the author of the first history of any college in either Oxford or Cambridge. According to the DNB: He belonged to a small and intimate group of antiquaries whom William Cole dubbed the Benedictines because of their association with Benet (Corpus Christi) College. It is possible that the restoration work that Norman pointed out in his picture of the memorial was carried out by Corpus Christi. But, says Norman, this still doesnt explain the mystery of the triglyph on which the tombstone sits: where on earth did it come from?
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Salon 271 got its literary magazines twisted in the report on the Van Riebeeck Societys new book, edited by Fellow Randolph Vigne, of Thomas Pringles South African Letters. After a short spell as the founding editor of Blackwoods Magazine, in 1817, it was to Constables short-lived Edinburgh Magazine that Pringle then moved, rather than to the mighty and august Edinburgh Review, domain of Francis Jeffrey, Brougham et al.
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Several Fellows have pointed out that if an envelope had arrived (mis)addressed to Ivan Margery (with an e) he might have assumed it was junk mail and binned it. To all who knew him, the author of Roman Roads was Donald Margary (with an a). He may perhaps never have known that he had been offered an honour.
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Sometimes spelling errors can be more apt than the intended word: commenting on the report in Salon 271, On false inscriptions and forged antiquities, Fellow Lindsay Allason-Jones thought that the description of the Royal Antiquarian Society as a leaned society was an accurate reflection of the current state of many archaeological institutions, struggling to make ends meet in straightened times.
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Referring to the report that appeared in Salon 267 under Books by Fellows on Panoramas of Lost London, by Fellow Philip Davies, Fellow Ian Leith writes to say that few if any of the images produced by the quaintly named but highly important Society for Photographing the Relics of Old London (which, in a very English antiquarian fashion quite privately created the first photographic survey of the capital between 1878 and 1886, while the then Office of Works was only interested in using the new medium for depicting government-owned buildings and it took at least another twenty years before any official body began to make proper photographic records); most of Lost London relates to the excellent but later photographs taken by the LCC.
Salon readers interested in the history of photography in an archaeological context might like to look at the earliest known systematic survey of a town in the UK using photographs. This was made by an amateur in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, between 1852 and 1864. This extraordinary project includes more than 250 copies of calotypes and can be found at English Heritage Archives in Swindon. A third of this survey was published in Victorian Townscape: the work of Samuel Smith by Michael Millward and Brian Coe (Ward Lock, 1974), and the bulk were later copied for posterity by the RCHME. Apart from now lost bits of Georgian Wisbech the set includes some of the first views of Norfolk churches nearby and the ruins of Hunstanton Hall (burnt down in 1853). Elsewhere in the English Heritage Archives photographs even exist of the previous Burlington House prior to its rebuilding in 1868 so architectural historians might like to consider the existence of Palladian Photography.
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Fellow Robert Merrillees thought that Salon readers might be interested to know that the bicentenary of Pugins birth, on 1 March 2012, is being celebrated at Hobart in Tasmania with a series of events, mostly at St Marys Roman Catholic Cathedral, whose design was inspired by Pugins neo-Gothic style. This is not the first occasion on which Pugins legacy has been commemorated in Australia, Robert writes, as an exhibition on Creating a Gothic Paradise: Pugin at the Antipodes was held in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart in 2002 to mark the 150th anniversary of his death on 14 September 1852. It was accompanied by a superb printed catalogue of lasting reference value. It notes that the only coherent collection of Pugins works outside Britain and Ireland is to be found in Australia.
The introduction of Pugin’s influence to Australia, particularly Tasmania, was due to Bishop Robert William Willson, first Roman Catholic bishop in Hobart Town, and donor in 1858 of a piece of Assyrian wall relief from Nineveh in Mesopotamia to the Royal Society of Tasmania. It is now in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and is being published by our younger daughter [the author and cultural consultant, Dolla Merrillees]. We recently made a visit to Hobart to investigate the circumstances surrounding this donation and learnt that Willsons brother, Edward James, was an antiquary whose collection of archaeological items was dispersed after his death in 1854 at two sales, one in 1854 and the other in 1888. It is said that the Society of Antiquaries bought a considerable part of the manuscript collection in 1901. We do not know how Robert William Willson obtained his Assyrian antiquity he is not recorded as having collected any other objets dart or shown any serious interest in the past but there is a possibility that he acquired it from his brother, Edward James, and any information that Fellows might be provide on the latter’s antiquarian pursuits would be much appreciated.
Submission deadline 30 March 2012: Placing Europe in the Museum: people(s), places, identities, an international conference held as part of the European Museums in an Age of Migrations (MeLA) European Commission FP7-funded project organised by the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Newcastle University, to take place on 3 and 4 September 2012. Abstracts of 300 words maximum for session proposals (three or four papers) or individual papers should be submitted to Victoria Patton on the following themes: theoretical approaches to the study of museums and place; the representation of migration and mobility in European museums; European and EU political contexts for place-people-culture relations; place identities in museums: European, national, local and hybridised; relationships between place and ethnicity in European museum representations; the visitor experiences of place representations in European museums; belonging and alienation in European museums. For further details, see the Mela project website.
Submission deadline 31 March 2012: Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, to be held in Helsinki, Finland, 29 August to 1 September 2012. The meeting is organised by the University of Helsinki, the National Board of Antiquities, the Finnish Antiquarian Society and the Archaeological Society of Finland. The main themes of this years meeting are: Archaeological Heritage Resource Management, Interpreting the Archaeological Record, Maritime Archaeology and Perspectives on Archaeology in the Modern World. Paper abstracts should not exceed 200 words and should include the name(s), affiliation(s) and contact information for the author(s). The paper abstracts may be submitted via the EAA website.
29 February 2012: European Archaeological Council Annual Meeting 2012. The deadline for registering for this event, which takes place on 1517 March 2012, in the Cité des Sciences, 30 Avenue Corentin Cariou, Paris, has been extended to 29 February. The topic for the symposium is Who Cares? Perspectives on Public Awareness, Participation and Protection in Europes Archaeology. Registration details and a detailed programme can be found on the EAC website.
1 March 2012: Forgotten Images of Europe, looking at evidence of early European cultures other than those of the Classical world, 5pm at Magdalene College, Cambridge, to be chaired by Fellow Simon Stoddart, with the participation of newly elected Fellow Reuben Grima on Prehistoric Maltese Art as well as Jessica Cooney on Palaeolithic Art and Melanie Giles on Celtic Art. Part of Magdalenes Festival of The Image 201112, the event and reception are free to all. Further information can be found on the Magdalene College website.
10 March 2012: Heavy Metal and Dirty Deeds: buttons, hooks and other dress accessories, to be held jointly by the Medieval Dress and Textile Society and the Finds Research Group, 10am to 5pm, Weston Theatre, Museum of London, 150 London Wall, London EC2Y 5HN. This one-day conference is to be held in memory of our late Fellow Geoff Egan, to celebrate his enormous contribution and continuing influence on the study of medieval (and later) dress accessories. Confirmed speakers include Fellow Hazel Forsyth (Museum of London), Frances Pritchard (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), Eleanor Standley (Ashmolean Museum), Fellow Julian Bowsher (MOLA) and Annemarieke Willemsen (Dutch National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden).
Further details from the Medieval Dress and Textile Societys website.
10 March 2012: Medievalists and Classicists in Conversation on the subject of Epic. The Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature (SSMLL) is sponsoring Conversations, a new initiative building on the close links and shared interests that exist between medievalists and classicists. The first of these conversations, at which the two communities can explore together a theme of mutual interest (in this case the theme will be Epic), takes place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and is jointly hosted with the Corpus Centre for the Study of Greek and Roman Antiquity. The intention of these day events is to focus on discussion rather than extended presentations, but contributors will provide short papers intended to help open up the conversation on such subjects as heroism and other worlds.
An outline programme and booking information are available on the SSMLL website.
22 March 2012: Launch of Edge of the Empire / Roman Camps in Scotland / Roman Camps in Britain, 6:30pm, Blackwells Bookshop, 5362 South Bridge, Edinburgh. If you are in Edinburgh on 22 March, pop along to Blackwells where two Fellows Dr Rebecca Jones of the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland and Council Member Professor David Breeze will give illustrated talks on their respective books (see Books by Fellows below), with insights into the movements of the Roman army in Scotland, from their arrival and the creation of temporary camps to the fortification of the frontier, and what remains behind. Free tickets are available from the front desk at Blackwells or from Ann Landmann.
9 to 13 April 2012: First International Conference on Archaeological Best Practice in World Heritage, a conference organised by the Complutense University of Madrid and sponsored by the Council of Menorca Island, who are working to establish Menorca as a reference point for studies on the treatment of properties inscribed by UNESCO. Further information can be found on the conference website.
20 to 22 April 2012: Wales and the World: the contribution and potential of World Heritage Sites in Wales. This conference, being promoted by the Cambrian Archaeological Association and organised by our Fellow Sian Rees, will be held at Llangollen, Denbighshire, and will examine and evaluate the role of World Heritage Sites in Wales now and in the future. Several Fellows will be giving papers on aspects of World Heritage, and on the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, the Blaenavon Industrial Landscape and the castles of Edward I, asking whether World Heritage Site status is worth the effort, and where next for Wales. For details and to register, see the Cambrian Archaeological Associations website.
27 to 29 April 2012: Seals and their Context in the Middle Ages, Aberystwyth. Our Fellow Dr Elizabeth New is co-organiser of this conference, which will explore the functions of seals in medieval Britain and western Europe in the broadest possible context. Themes will include the use of seals in law and administration, the act of sealing and the recording of this act as well as questions relating to how, why and by whom seals were employed. A further important theme will be the manner in which seals relate to other sources: visual, material and documentary. Above all the conference will encourage debate among scholars operating from within different academic traditions. Speakers include Fellows Adrian Ailes, Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, John Cherry, Paul Harvey, Sandy Heslop, Brian Kemp and Nicholas Vincent. For a booking-form and further information see the Aberystwyth University website.
7 June 2012: Roman Pottery in the Fifth Century, a one-day conference to be held at the School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University. Further details from the conference website.
Launch of the new Journal of Archaeological Numismatics
Volume 1 (2011) of the Journal of Archaeological Numismatics has just been published by the European Centre for Numismatic Studies / Centre Européen dÉtudes Numismatique, under the editorship of Jean-Marc Doyen, with our Fellow Richard Reece as Honorary President of the Scientific Committee, whose members include our Fellows Simon Esmonde Cleary and David Wigg-Wolf.
The journal sets out to create a rapprochement between numismatists and archaeologists and show that there is more to the job of archaeological numismatist than the production of a simple catalogue of coins ordered by date. The journal will serve as a forum for archaeologists, numismatists and specialists in other auxiliary disciplines (economists and historians, for example) to come together and consider the significance and interpretation of coin finds in context. The issues are explored in two papers that introduce the first edition, Archaeology and numismatics: can we reconcile the Fraternal enemies, by Jean-Marc Doyen, and Richard Reeces paper on Contexts in context.
Papers for future volumes are welcomed that review successive assemblages from a single site, showing the evolution, or stagnation, of circulation patterns and changes in the function of different denominations over time; that compare finds from the same horizons from a number of local and regional contexts; or that present a synthesis of such topics as the chronology of particular monetary types, or the chronology of coins in relation to other artefact types, such as ceramics or metalwork. The journal will also review selected publications.
Further details from Jean-Marc Doyen.
Books by Fellows: Life in Medieval Landscapes
Edited by Sam Turner and Fellow Bob Silvester, Life in Medieval Landscapes: people and places in the Middle Ages (ISBN: 978-1-905119-40-0; Windgather Press) consists of papers presented in memory of the historical geographer Professor Harold Fox (d 2007) by former colleagues, friends and research students, many of whom are now Fellows, showcasing some of the best research in the fields of medieval landscape and social history. After an introductory essay by our Fellow Christopher Dyer on Harold Foxs contribution to our understanding of the past, the first part of the book explores the places of the title, with a look at the ways in which different types of landscapes have been managed in the past, especially such marginal landscapes as marshland, upland, woodland and wood pasture. The second part looks at the people, with a particular focus on understanding the lives of peasants and labourers, through papers on the land market before the Black Death, the organisation of village communities, and how settlement change relates to changes in demography and occupations.
Books by Fellows: Global Perspectives on Archaeological Field Schools
Two issues ago, Salon reported on Fellow Mike Corbishleys new book, Pinning down the Past: archaeology, heritage and education today. Now we hear from another experienced practitioner in the field of archaeological education, our Fellow Harold Mytum, who gives us the benefit of his many years of experience as director of the long-running Castell Henllys project and of field schools in Ireland and the Isle of Man. In Global Perspectives on Archaeological Field Schools: constructions of knowledge and experience (ISBN: 9781461404323; Springer), the papers that Harold brings together look at the conduct of field schools and how to maximise their value for teaching and research; but the global perspectives in the title also refers to the fact that field schools often take their participants out of their familiar environment to parts of the world that they may not have encountered before, and this in itself represents a twofold opportunity: for the field school participants and for the communities within whose midst they work for a period of time. The book has many valuable insights for ensuring that field schools work positively for everyone.
Books by Fellows: Medieval Manuscripts
Not one but two books were published late last year by our Fellow Rodney Thomson, who has taught medieval history at the University of Tasmania since 1975 and is now Emeritus Professor of Medieval History and Honorary Research Fellow in the School of History and Classics. The first is A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Oxford I: Western Manuscripts (ISBN 9781843842842; D S Brewer). The College of Corpus Christi, Oxford, was founded by Richard Fox, bishop of Winchester, to be a conduit of Italian humanism and some of the medieval manuscripts in the Library relate to that objective, while others reflect the interests of subsequent collectors, one of whom, for example, had a taste for chemistry and alchemy and contributed John Dees books, which joins an important group of astronomical, arithmetical and medical texts. There is a substantial clutch of twelfth- and thirteenth-century manuscripts from Llanthony Priory and a large number of manuscripts in various vernaculars: Old and Middle English and French, Old Irish, Catalan, and even fifteenth-century Czech.
The second is a Catalogue of Medieval Manuscripts of Latin Commentaries on Aristotle in British Libraries. Vol I: Oxford (ISBN 9782503542324; Brepols), which lists 397 items, including portfolios of fragments from more than one original book, dating from the late twelfth century until c 1500, now in the Bodleian or in college libraries in Oxford. The majority were made locally and used in the medieval university; many of them, such as the important Canonici collection in the Bodleian Library, have not been adequately described before, while most of the anonymous commentaries have never before been listed.
Books by Fellows: Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing
Julian Hill and Fellow Peter Rowsome are the main authors behind the latest Museum of London Archaeology monograph: Roman London and the Walbrook Stream Crossing: excavations at 1 Poultry and vicinity, City of London (ISBN: 9781907586040; MOLA). This also marks the completion of the project to publish this major site, with the medieval and post-medieval monographs already out, along with a popular book. What the book shows clearly is how well the timber, metalwork and environmental evidence was preserved at a site that had evidence for pre-Boudican development (a timber drain of AD 47 beneath the main road is the earliest securely dated structure yet known from Londinium, and a pottery shop, destroyed in the Boudican revolt, gives a snapshot of life in AD 60/1) and that also had very good (and rare) evidence for late Roman property development and continuity.
Peter Rowsome says that although the site didn’t produce a single spectacular discovery, the sheer volume of detailed information (over seventy Roman timber buildings of various dates) makes it one of our most important Roman London excavations and we hope that the publication will become a key reference work for researchers of Roman London and Roman urbanism more generally. Peter remembers that the site was one of the most awkward and expensive to dig that Ive seen; and that the opportunity to dig the site under controlled conditions was only possible due to eleventh-hour negotiations that saved the day, thanks to a lot of people working together from the MoL, English Heritage, the developer and their representatives; completing a project like Poultry is all about the organisation and the team involved (over 100 archaeologists worked on Poultry, plus dozens of attendance workers and many others) and it says much about professional, contract archaeology such as that carried out in the UK by MOLA that top-notch academic results can be achieved despite (or maybe because of?) the tough construction environments and strict deadlines.
Books by Fellows: Roman Frontiers in Wales and the Marches
This is a book that Salon should have mentioned long ago (it is worth re-stating that Salons editor relies on authors to let him know of books that they have published): published in 2010, Roman Frontiers in Wales and the Marches (ISBN: 9781871184396; Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales is edited by Fellows Barry Burnham and Jeffrey Davies and it describes and analyses the remains of the Roman armys presence in Wales (with the exception of the ephemeral marching- and practice-camps, dealt with in the 2006 volume on Roman Camps in Wales and the Marches, about which see more in Roman Camps below). It is divided into two parts. The first part deals with the history of military activity in Wales, with analysis and discussion of the chronology and morphology of military installations, communication systems, extramural settlements and the armys impact on the environment and the native economy. The second part is a comprehensive gazetteer of known, probable and possible military sites and Roman roads.
Books by Fellows: Roman Camps in Scotland and in Britain
Our Fellow Rebecca Jones has two books just out, both on the subject of Roman camps. The first, Roman Camps in Scotland, was published by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (ISBN: 9780903903509), and it completes the set for Britain that started with Roman Camps in England (1995), by our Fellows Humphrey Welfare and the late Vivian Swan, and went on with Roman Camps in Wales and the Marches (2006), by Rebecca herself and Fellow Jeffrey Davies. This book shows that, for a country that successfully resisted Roman conquest, there is nevertheless a rich archaeological legacy of temporary camps, constructed to house the army for short periods of time during the Roman armys repeated campaigns, patrols and manoeuvres. In this book, the field evidence, in the form of earthwork remains and cropmarks, is discussed against the background of Roman army campaigns with each of the camps described and illustrated in a detailed gazetteer, fully illustrated with plans, maps and photographs.
Rebeccas second book is a more general introduction to Roman Camps in Britain, published by Amberley (ISBN: 9781848686885). Britain has the largest number of recorded camps in the Roman Empire, with some 500 examples now known. This book provides an overview of the Roman conquest of Britain and an explanation of what the Roman camps were used for. It looks at the distribution of camps, their chronology, context, re-use and survival, with insights gained from recent fieldwork, including extensive excavations at Kintore in Aberdeenshire.
Books by Fellows: Archaeology Meets Science: biomolecular investigations in Bronze Age Greece
Another catch-up: published in 2008, Archaeology Meets Science: biomolecular investigations in Bronze Age Greece (ISBN: 9781842172384; Oxbow Books), edited by Yannis Tzedakis (Director General Emeritus of Antiquities, Hellenic Ministry of Culture) and Fellows Holley Martlew and Martin Jones, this book examines the ways in which the study of organic residues in ceramics and stable isotopes in human bone has extended our knowledge of the food and drink consumed by ordinary people in Bronze Age Greece. Among the fascinating insights is the suggestion that retsina has probably been drunk in Greece since the Early Minoan Period, c 2000 BC. Reviewers have praised the book for the clarity with which the data are presented, and areas for future research defined, and for the methodological explanations, which means that the book can be understood even by those for whom scientific study is now a dim memory.
Gifts to the Library, October to December 2011
The Society is very grateful to the donors of the following books, given to the Library in the period from October to December 2011. Full records are available online and all books are now available in the Library.
From the author, David Allan, FSA, The Coloured Mass: art and artists in the Twickenham area from Tudor times to the twenty-first century (2011)
From the co-editor, David Allan, FSA, The Albertine Legacy: proceedings of a symposium held to commemorate the obtaining of Royal patronage and title by the RSA, edited by David G C Allan and Susan Bennett (2009)
From Hugo Blake, FSA, Oriental Ceramics in Rus, Ninth to Seventeenth Centuries, by V Yu Koval (2010)
From the author, Antony Carr, FSA, Medieval Anglesey, revised edn, Studies in Anglesey History 12 (2011)
From Peter Clayton, FSA, Ancestral Maya Economies in Archaeological Perspective, by Patricia A McAnany (2010); From Foraging to Farming in the Andes: new perspectives on food production and social organization, edited by Tom D Dillehay (2011); Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica, by Amos Megged (2010); Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City, by Alexander Parmington (2011); Butrint 3: Excavations at the Triconch Palace, by William Bowden and Richard Hodges, FSA, Butrint Archaeological Monograph 5/3 (2011)
From the author, Janet Cooper, FSA, The Church Dedications and Saints Cults of Medieval Essex (2011)
From the author, Alexandra Croom, FSA, Running the Roman Home (2011)
From co-author P J Davey, FSA, Rushen Abbey and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the Isle of Man, by P J Davey and J R Roscow, Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society Monograph 1 (2010)
From the co-author, Roy Davids, FSA, Provenance: collectors, dealers and scholars: Chinese ceramics in Britain and America, by Roy Davids and Dominic Jellinek (2011)
From the co-author, Phillip Emery, St Pancras Burial Ground: excavations for St Pancras International, the London terminus of High Speed 1, 20023, by Phillip A Emery and Kevin Wooldridge (2011)
From the author, Francisco Estrada-Belli, The First Maya Civilization: ritual and power before the Classic period (2011)
From the editor, M A Faraday, FSA, Herefordshire Taxes in the Reign of Henry VIII (2005)
From the author, Barbara W Fash, FSA, The Copan Sculpture Museum: ancient Maya artistry in stucco and stone (2011)
From the author, Peter Fergusson, FSA, Canterbury Cathedral Priory in the Age of Becket (2011)
From Marit Gaimster, FSA, Wirkmächtige Kommunikationsmedien: menschenbilder der vendel- und Wikingerzeit und ihre kontexte, by Michaela Helmbrecht, Acta Archaeologica Lundensia series prima in 4°, no. 30 (2011)
From the editor, Jonathan Harlow, The Friends to Literature: Bristol Library Society 17721894, by Kathleen Hapgood, Avon Local History and Archaeology Books 7 (2011)
From the author, Karen Hearn, FSA, Rubens and Britain (2011)
From Aideen Ireland, FSA, Seeing England: antiquaries, travellers and naturalists, by Charles Lancaster (2008)
From the author, Anne Irving, FSA, A Research Framework for Post-Roman Ceramic Studies in Britain, Medieval Pottery Research Group Occasional Paper 6 (2011)
From Lynnette Keys, FSA, Cirencester before Corinium: excavations at Kingshill North, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, by Edward Biddulph and Ken Welsh, Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 34 (2011); Castle Hill and its Landscape: archaeological investigations at Wittenhams, Oxfordshire, by Tim Allen, Kate Cramp, Hugo Lamdin-Whymark and Leo Webley, Oxford Archaeology Monograph 9 (2010)
From Chris Kitching, FSA, Le Palais de Bruxelles; huit siècles dart et dhistoire, by Arletter Smolar-Meynart et al (1991)
From Peter Ian Kuniholm, FSA, Tree-rings, Kings and Old World Archaeology and Environment: papers presented in honor of Peter Ian Kuniholm, edited by Sturt W Manning, FSA, and Mary Jaye Bruce (2009)
From the editor, Mark Merrony, FSA, Mougins Museum of Classical Art (2011)
From the co-authors, Jacqueline A Nowakowski, FSA, and Henrietta Quinnell, FSA, Trevelgue Head, Cornwall: the importance of C K Croft Andrews 1939 excavations for prehistoric and Roman Cornwall (2011)
From the author, Richard Olney, FSA, Church and Community in South London: St Saviours, Denmark Park 18811905 (2011)
From the author, John Owen, FSA, The Shepherds and Shepherd Neame Brewery, Faversham Kent 17321875 (2011)
From the co-author, Cecilia Powell, FSA, A Cumbrian Artist Rediscovered: John Smith (17491831) , by Cecilia Powell and Stephen Hebron (2011)
From the editor, Alan Rogers, FSA, The Act Book of St Katherines Gild, Stamford, 14801534 (2011)
From the co-author, Christophe Sand, FSA, Lexpédition archeologique dEdward W. Gifford et Richard Shutler Jr en Nouvelle-Calédonie au cours de lannée 1952, by Christophe Sand and Patrick V Kirch (2002)
From the joint author, Christophe Sand, FSA, Parcours archéologique : deux décennies de recherches du Département Archéologie de Nouvelle-Calédonie (19912007) , by Christophe Sand et al, Cahiers de l’archéologie en Nouvelle Calédonie 17 (2008)
From the co-editor, Kathleen Thompson, FSA, Normandy and its Neighbours, 9001250: essays for David Bates, edited by David Crouch and Kathleen Thompson, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe 14 (2011)
From the author, Merlin Waterson, FSA, A Noble Thing: the National Trust and its benefactors (2011)
From contributor, Bruce Watson, FSA, Archaeology of Bridges: prehistory, antiquity, Middle Ages, modern era / Archäologie der Brü cken: vorgeschichte, antike, mittelalter, neuzeit (2011)
From the co-translator, David Watts, Glass Recipes of the Renaissance: transcription of an anonymous Venetian manuscript by Cesare Moretti and Tullio Toninato, English translation with additional notes, by David Watts and Cesare Moretti (2011)
From Karen Hearn, FSA, Fatal Colours: the Battle of Towton, 1461, by George Goodwin (2011)
From Alan Aberg, FSA, Velislavova bible, by Zdeněk Uhlíř (2007); Pictoria, by Pavel Dvořák (2006)
From the co-author, Sally Badham, FSA, Monumental Brasses, by Sally Badham with Martin Stuchfield, FSA (2009)
From the author, Christopher Evans, FSA, Grounding Knowledge/Walking Land (2009)
From Maurice Howard, FSA, Parham: an Elizabethan house and its restoration, by Jayne Kirk (2009)
From Peter Kuniholm, FSA, Considering questions of market infill in medieval English towns, dissertation by Jennifer Diane Watkins (2009)
From Professor Vincent Megaw, Fellow: Studien zu Sozialen Strukturen der Historischen Kelten in Mitteleuropa aufgrund der Graberanalyse (2005); Keltische Funde (Reiss-Museum) (1980); De la Meditérranée vers lAtlantique, by Dominique Frere (2006)
From the editor, John Owen, FSA, The Manor of Davington in Kent (2006)
From the author, David Phillipson, FSA, Ancient Churches of Ethiopia (2009)
The staff of the Societys Library have added a note to their very useful list of catalogues, bibliographies and databases to say that JSTOR is now making older journal content (published prior to 1923 in the USA and prior to 1870 elsewhere) freely available to individual scholars (but not to corporate subscribers). The JSTOR introductory page has an explanatory video on how to use this service.
Historic property for sale in Spain
Our Honorary Secretary Brian Ayers has been approached by the owner of a fifteenth-century Jewish merchants house in Castile, Spain, who would like to sell to a sympathetic institution or individual (the asking price is £100,000). The building, which is in a good state of preservation with seven ample bedrooms and six reception rooms, retains many of its original doors and windows, balustrade and ironwork and floor tiles plus hypocausts (in working order) as well as a walled garden. The owner needs to sell but is afraid that, if sold locally, it could be demolished. Brian is not familiar with heritage legislation in Spain and is therefore unable to offer advice on how protection could be secured, but he would be happy to pass on advice, offers of assistance or expressions of interest.
The Landmark Trust: Director
The main elements of the job are to lead the Landmark Trust, setting and implementing Landmarks strategy with the support of the trustees, managing a successful historic property holiday lettings business and a stream of historic building restoration projects adding to the portfolio of Landmarks. For further information or to express an interest contact Ian Lazarus or Nabeela Salim at The Miles Partnership by telephone (020 7569 9531) or email.
The Commission for Looted Art in Europe: Provenance Researcher
A motivated and experienced art historian is sought for a full-time post in London to provide guidance and support to researchers and art historians involved in international projects to document, identify and trace works of art that were seized in the period 1933 to 1945. Fluent in German, with an MA or PhD, strong art historical knowledge and background, and proven archival and provenance research experience is required. Knowledge of other European languages, Nazi art looting operations and relevant research resources would be an advantage. For further information, see the website of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe.
The British Museum: Curator, Early Medieval Insular Collections
Salary £26,820; closing date: 5 March 2012
See Job Opportunities on the British Museums website for further details.
SAVE Britain’s Heritage: Secretary
Salary up to £30,000; closing date: 9 March 2012
SAVEs Secretary is responsible for heading the organisation and running the office under the guidance of the President and Trustees. He or she will be expected to initiate and co-ordinate campaigns, write and publish reports and work with a team of professional advisers in putting together alternative schemes, organising legal challenges and dealing with the press. Candidates should have a degree or qualification relating to architecture, architectural history or building conservation plus a good knowledge of the planning system and experience of working within the heritage world. For further information, email Alison Hunt.
Old Newcastle Project, Newcastle upon Tyne: Learning Officer
£22,220 to £24,650; closing date: 14 March 2012
Experienced Learning Officer needed to develop and deliver inspiring and creative learning and events programmes for a variety of audiences as part of the Old Newcastle project. For full details and a job description see the projects website.
Oxford University Department for Continuing Education: part-time University Lectureship in English Local and Social History
Salary £42,883 to £57,581 pro rata
Any area of English local history will be considered, but with a strong preference for social and economic history in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Further information from the departments website.
Society of Antiquaries: Communications and Events Officer
Salary: £15,600 to £17,100 (£26,000 to £28,500 FTE); closing date 19 March 2012
Clear, effective communication with Fellows, the public and key stakeholders (such as heritage agencies and the Government) is vital to the Society. We need to be able to let others know about the major contribution the Society and its Fellows make to the heritage sector and in helping to shape public policy on heritage issues. Working closely with the General Secretary, senior staff and trustees you will be responsible for developing and delivering a communications strategy and producing communications in a range of media. You will also manage the Societys website and take responsibility for the organisation of a range of events, including lectures and seminars.
You will have a proven track record in communications, exceptional writing skills, strong CMS skills, and excellent attention to detail. Experience in the cultural heritage sector and membership organisations would be advantageous.
For a full job description and application details see the Societys website.
The Historic Chapels Trust: Director
Salary negotiable, part-time (four days per week); closing date: 19 March 2012
Our Fellow Jennie Freeman is retiring as Director of the Historic Chapels Trust (HCT) and a successor is sought who will provide effective leadership of the HCT as it faces numerous pressures, not least on the funding needed to sustain the organisation, rescue further historic chapels at risk and maintain the existing portfolio. The new Director will be expected to take an entrepreneurial approach to fundraising through better use of the HCTs properties and an improved offer to funders and sponsors. The new Director will need the intellectual breadth to be successful in the role, have an engaging personality, a flexible approach and be able to demonstrate a strong commitment to the aims of the HCT.
To download an application pack, please go to the website of search consultants Prospect-Us. To discuss the post in further detail, please contact Philip Nelson (tel: 020 7691 1920.
Cambridge University, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Post-Doctoral Anniversary Research Fellowship
Salary: £27,578 to £35,938 pa, plus up to £10,000 pa research support funds; closing date: 30 April 2012
The McDonald Institute marks its twentieth anniversary by inviting applications for the second of five three-year post-doctoral Anniversary Research Fellowships. Applicants should propose a focused research project and a broader inter-disciplinary conference topic within one of the five major research areas of current interest to the Institute: human-environment interaction, social change, symbols, material culture and heritage. The successful applicant must have completed their doctorate at the time of taking up the Fellowship on or around 1 October 2012. Further particulars and an application form (ref: CHRIS 6) may be obtained from Rebecca Burtenshaw.