Excavating Pitt-Rivers curatorial assistants

A card label thought to be hand-written and wax-sealed by General Pitt-Rivers. It is tied to an iron object (PRM 1884.138.46), recorded by the Excavating Pitt-Rivers curatorial team on 17 January whilst working through metal objects from the site of Caesar's Camp, Folkestone. The wax seal appears to show a griffin and a deer mounted on two crowns.

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers project is now underway, and two Curatorial Assistants have joined the team. This blog post introduces these new team members – Carlotta Gardner and Judy White – and their role in the project over the coming 12 months.

Carlotta received her BSc in Archaeology from the University of Bradford, and recently completed her MSc at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, and has previously worked at English Heritage and volunteered at the British Museum. Her background lies largely in archaeological science and she has a specific interest in archaeometallurgy.

Judy received her BA and MSc in Archaeology from the University of Southampton, specialising in osteoarchaeology.  She has since worked in a variety of collections-based curatorial, research and documentation roles at the Natural History Museum, Manchester Museum, English Heritage and Oxford University Museums.

Carlotta and Judy will be working with the primary archaeological material, enhancing database records and researching the details of excavations and sites from which General Pitt-Rivers collected artefacts. Through this work, the primary documentation – and the online digital records – for the English archaeological collections made by General Pitt-Rivers will be enhanced. The team will work through English counties exchanging information with local authority archaeologists, Historic Environment Records, and local archaeological societies. Judy and Carlotta’s collections-based work will also provide crucial new data for the project’s public archaeology programme.