A Ceramic Tile from Kent

Image: a ceramic tile from Castle Hill, Folkestone, Kent, excavated by Pitt-Rivers in 1878

During August, we are publishing through this blog a series of new photographs taken by archaeological photographer Ian Cartwright for an online Image Gallery created with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can read more about the gallery here, and you can see the whole gallery online here.

Here is the text for this image:

This abraded ceramic tile, of Romano-British or post-Roman date, is from Pitt-Rivers’ fieldwork at Castle Hill in Folkestone, Kent in 1878. Initially believing its earthworks (known locally as ‘Caesar’s Camp’) dated from the Roman invasions of Britain, his excavations revealed the monument in fact to be a medieval timber castle. Four different museum catalogue numbers are present, and a hand-written label describes the circumstances of discovery. The label reads: FRAGMENT OF NORMAN OR ROMAN TILE FOUND IN INTERIOR SLOP TO UPPER RAMPART WEST END BENEATH NORMAN CARVING CAESAR’S CAMP FOLKESTONE JUNE 26TH 1878 THE ONLY PIECE FOUND IN THE CAMP. Written for museum display, the label’s text retains elements of the General’s interpretive challenges in the field – singling out this possibly Romano-British find from a site that proved to be medieval in date, and describing the monument as a ‘camp’ (a term suggesting a prehistoric hillfort or Roman military camp) rather than a castle. (Pitt Rivers Museum Accession Number 1884.138.25)

Image/Object/Text: an AHRC Image Gallery

Image: screen grab from the new online image gallery of objects from Pitt-Rivers' English archaeological collections, hosted by AHRC

Today sees the launch of an online Image Gallery published by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), showcasing 12 new photographs of English archaeological objects from the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum.  The gallery builds directly on primary documentation work undertaken as part of the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project, and funded by Arts Council England through the Designation Development Fund. Our collaboration with photographer Ian Cartwright was funded by AHRC. A summary of the project is below.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is Oxford University’s Museum of Anthropology and World Archaeology. Founded in 1884 with a donation of c. 26,500 objects by General Augustus Lane Fox Pitt-Rivers, today the Museum holds more than half a million objects.  Pitt-Rivers was a key figure in the development of modern scientific archaeology, but his own archaeological collections have received little attention and less than 5% are on display in the Museum. To start to address this historic neglect, between November 2012 and December 2013 Dan Hicks ran a project, funded through a grant from the Designation Development Fund of Arts Council England (ACE), titled Excavating Pitt-Rivers. Working in the Museum stores, the project documented the English archaeological material collected by General Pitt-Rivers between c. 1865 and 1880. The project team documented some 10,696 archaeological artefacts from across England and published them on the Museum’s online database. In most cases, this is the first time that the objects have been examined since they came to Oxford in 1884.

This basic process of collections-based documentation and enhancement has made  possible this new image gallery, Image/Object/Text. One unexpected outcome of the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project was been a realization that Pitt-Rivers wrote on almost every object that he excavated – and that this text was re-written and added to by other curatorial hands from the 1870s into the 20th century, sometimes creating complex layers of hand-written text and printed labels, the idea of turning archaeological objects into a kind of manuscript record is one interesting way of thinking about Pitt-Rivers’ innovations in scientific archaeology, and his direct approach to objectivity and documentation.

Inspired by this observation, for this online gallery we invited archaeological photographer Ian Cartwright to work with Museum curators to create twelve new images that explore the different kinds of text that is found on these archaeological objects, excavated by Pitt-Rivers between the 1860s and 1880s.  Dan Hicks has written a series of captions, exploring how each text can be read to reveal elements of the object’s modern life-history, as well as its archaeological past.  Together, the images and captions show how entangled relationships between museum artefacts and their documentation can unfold, blurring the lines between premodern archaeological objects and modern manuscripts, and transforming artefacts into unique kinds of documents. 

You can read more and explore all the images on the AHRC Image Gallery Website

Report on Designation Development Fund award for the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project

Excavating Pitt-Rivers: Report for Designation Development Fund Award, December 2013

Between November 2012 and December 2013, the work of the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project was supported through an award of  £76,654 from the Designation Development Fund of Arts Council England. We have now published a Report, summarising what our team has achieved during through this award, and our plans for future work on the collections. The document is available here and the summary is provided below. 

The Excavating Pitt-Rivers project continues in 2014, building on the crucial proof-of-concept work funded through thus Arts Council England award, through further publication and public dissemination,  and further grant applications.

EXCAVATING PITT-RIVERS (DESIGNATION DEVELOPMENT FUND): SUMMARY

Through an award of £76,654 from the Designation Development Fund, the Excavating Pitt-Rivers project has enhanced the care, documentation and public understanding of the earliest archaeological collections that were acquired by General Augustus Pitt-Rivers from sites across England, and which are held at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM). Led by Dr Dan Hicks (Lecturer-Curator in Archaeology), the project team has documented, photographed and published to the Museum’s online database c.10,687 archaeological objects that were collected and excavated by General Pitt-Rivers from across England between c. 1864 and 1880.

Our understanding of this unique archaeological collection has been completely transformed by the project. In our application to the Designation Development Fund, we stated that “Our initial estimate is that this collection comprises c. 5,000 artefacts from more than 61 sites across at least 12 English counties”. Through a collections based approach, the number of objects recorded in the database has more than doubled to c. 10,687. The number of sites from which objects derive has risen from just 61 across 12 English counties to 267 across 32 counties. Before the project the vast majority of the objects had not been examined since their arrival in Oxford in 1884: the taking of more than 20,800 photographs of objects by the project team – now fully uploaded to the Museum’s database and website – is therefore a watershed moment. The newly enhanced documentation transforms not just our understanding, but also the future potential of the collection for research and display. It also highlights the potential of applying the highest standards of documentation to historic archaeological collections that have conventionally been treated in a more broad-brush manner.

At the same time, the project has pioneered an approach to collections-based documentation enhancement and desk-based research that is grounded in a programme of public engagement. A project blog (excavatingpittrivers.blogspot.com) has attracted more than 20,000 unique visitors over 12 months, and an additional estimated 100,000 people have been reached through an active Twitter campaign led by Pitt Rivers Museum (Twitter) and Dan Hicks (Twitter).

Seven public events have been held across the country, in Folkestone, Leeds, York, London, Lewes, Guildford and Oxford. Four visits by local archaeological societies have been hosted at the Pitt Rivers Museum, and have included talks and object handling sessions. Published outputs have ranged from a feature in British Archaeology magazine, and articles in the journals and newsletters of regional archaeological societies, to an open-access peer-reviewed paper in the distinguished American journal Current Anthropology (December 2013). The project has achieved extensive regional and national media coverage, including appearances by Dan Hicks on the BBC4 documentary Heritage! The Battle for Britain’s Past, and on Radio 4’s In Our Time.

The legacies of the project include a series of new connections across the museum and heritage sector that have already led to funding applications for new initiatives that build on the momentum built up through Excavating Pitt-Rivers, grounded in excellence, public engagement, and sustainability. The results of the project will also directly inform the re-display of the archaeological collections in the Museum’s permanent displays through the Museum’s £1.6m Heritage Lottery-supported redisplay and outreach programme VERVE (Visitors, Engagement, Renewal, Visibility, Enrichment), which runs from 2012-2017.