Out and about...

The town hall in Lewes - formerly the Star Inn where Pitt-Rivers stayed whilst excavating Mount Caburn in 1877-78.

As part of our public engagement programme, for the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project, Carlotta Gardner gave a talk to the Sussex Archaeological Society in Lewes on Saturday (8th June). It was an excellent opportunity to inform the society, with which Pitt-Rivers worked, about the project and our results from cataloguing and researching the archaeological material excavated by the General from Sussex which is held at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.

The Sussex Archaeological Society on top of Mount Caburn

After the Talk a group of us went on a small field trip up Mount Caburn, where Pitt-Rivers excavated in 1877-78. The weather was perfect and we were able to see for miles around. As mentioned in a previous post Pitt-Rivers spent a considerable amount of time in Sussex studying and excavating a number of 'camps'. Mount Caburn was of particular interest to Pitt-Rivers and the Museum holds approximately 3,900 objects from his excavations there. In a letter to George Rolleston he described having to walk up the mount in order to be there before 8 am to set things up. Walking from Lewes would have taken around 30-40 minutes.

The walk up Mount Caburn (from Glynde)

Overall it was a wonderful day out and the Society were incredibly friendly and welcoming. We look forward to their visit to Oxford, to look at the Sussex collections, in October.

Panoramic view from the top of Mount Caburn.