Teaching Classics using Objects from the Museum Collection and Star Trek

Irit and the Classics students (3rd February 2014)

Some time ago we were asked by tutors in the Classics department to support teaching using objects from Manchester Museum’s rich archaeology collection. We provided a list of objects from archaeology and numismatics to help the teaching of ancient Greece and Rome. Last week a number of preparatory sessions took place. Irit Narkiss from the Museum’s conservation team led a training session to look at not only how the objects should be handled but how to examine objects too. Obviously special care is needed when handling objects that may be fragile because they are several thousand years old but as a university museum we like to try and find ways of making practical use of the objects in teaching and research that is taking place at the University of Manchester.

Irit leading the session about objects

This came to fruition on Friday afternoon when we spoke to two classes of students and they found out for the first time which objects they would be working with. The objects include a mortarium, a miniature amphora, a Roman coin, some samian pottery, a lamp, a glass vessel, some coarseware pottery and a piece of ammunition from a Roman stone-thrower.

There was a ‘bran tub’ lucky dip whereby the students got their objects. As there were a few leftover items there was also the option to swap objects for other items the student might feel more interested in. They will do a written piece of work called an object biography in which they’ll explore what the object is, how it was made, what it was used for and what it tells us about life in Roman times.

This is something of a new development in working with colleagues in Classics to make objects available for teaching and hopefully it will help to surmount some of the difficulties that students may experience in making use of the Museum and its collections as an educational resource. Many are familiar with written records of the period but for some this will be the first time they will have worked with objects.

Students with objects (7th February)

The benefits of working with objects to me seem obvious. I always think of the wonderful scene in the film Star Trek First Contact in which Jean-Luc Picard (played by Patrick Stewart) and his android officer Commander Data (played by Brent Spiner) go back in time and encounter the first spaceship – the Pheonix – to have warp drive. This development made interstellar travel possible for the first time so the rocket is in Picard’s time, several hundred years later, a very popular exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum.

As Picard explains: “It’s a boyhood fantasy Data. I must have seen this ship hundreds of times in the Smithsonian but I was never able to touch it”. Data asks “Sir, does tactile contact alter your perception of the Phoenix?” And Picard gives what I think is one of the best recommendations for handling objects in museums: “Oh yes, for humans touch can connect you to an object in a very personal way and make it seem more real”.

Of course this is lost on Data, who replies: “I’m detecting imperfections in the titanium casing and temperature fluctuations in the fuel manifold. It is no more real to me than it was a moment ago…”

Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner meet the Phoenix

Harpy Tomb Gets Go Ahead

Panel from North Side of the Harpy Tomb at Xanthos in Lycia, Turkey

One of the areas that we did not have time to look at last year when we opened our new Ancient Worlds galleries last October was the corridor between the Numismatic gallery and the third gallery of Ancient Worlds. Which was a shame given that some of the conservation work on the objects we planned to display had already been done. In fact the objects concerned, the plaster casts of the Harpy Tomb from Xanthos in Turkey, have already featured in the Ancient Worlds blog. Earlier this week I met Senior Technician, John Miller, to discuss how we might go about displaying them.

Line drawing of the North Side of the Harpy Tomb from the Illustrated London News (courtesy of Debbie Challis)

Unfortunately we don’t have a complete set of the casts of this impressive 2500-year-old funerary monument, which may be no bad thing because the exhibition space we have in mind wouldn’t be long enough, unless we took out some rather useful cupboards to create the space needed. We’ve decided to get round the problem of not having all the pieces of the jigsaw by showing images of the missing panels alongside plaster casts of the panels we do have. In this way we’ll be able to give visitors an overview of this amazing monument using attractive objects from the store that would otherwise hardly be seen, and in a location that lends itelf to a more visual experience.

The plaster casts are copies of panels that once decorated the four sides of a monument known as the Harpy Tomb or the Kypernis tomb at Xanthos, in Lycia, in south western Turkey. The panels were at the top of a stone tower. They appear to show a ceremony taking place at the Lycian court. The ruler, who is sitting on a throne, receives offerings. The ruler and the courtiers hold sweet-smelling flowers or fruits to their noses. One of the figures is carrying Classical Greek armour: a hoplon shield and a Corinthian helmet.

Panel depicting winged deities – Harpies? – from Xanthus. From the Illustrated London News courtesy of Debbie Challis.

It is not clear what the winged figures on some of the panels mean. They may be carrying off the spirits of the dead to the afterlife. In Greek mythology winged women called harpies tormented people. The best-known depiction of  Harpies is in the film Jason and the Argonauts (1963) starring Todd Armstrong and Nancy Kovack. It is the special effects of  Ray Harryhausen that stay in the memory. They put modern CGI to shame. In the film Jason and his crew land on an island to seek some information from the blind seer Phineus, who is being tormented by the harpies. Every time he is served a meal the harpies turn up and eat his food or defecate on it. Jason catches the harpies in a net, imprisons them in a cage and in return Phineus gives him the information he needs to find the golden fleece.  All of which is great fun, especially when you’re a nine-year-old lad and it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen on TV in your entire life.

Line drawings of the Harpy Tomb from the Illustrated London News (courtesy of Debbie Challis)

The original panels from the Harpy Tomb at Xanthos are in the British Museum. They were collected by English archaeologist Charles Fellows (1799-1860) who travelled in Turkey and found the ruins of the town of Xanthos in Lycia in south west Turkey. At this time Britain and France were competing with one another to collect antiquities for their respective museums. With the help of the Royal Navy, Fellows collected stone carvings from some of the tombs at Xanthos for the British Museum.

Another Tiger Striped Teapot

Victorian striped teapot that turned up in the States

Thanks to one of our American readers I am pleased to be able to post an image of another striped teapot.

Readers may recall that we posted photos of fragments of a similar teapot that was discovered during excvations in the centre of Manchester in the 1970s. Since then an example has turned up on a Norwegian flea market and now there’s this fine example from the States.

It is interesting that the lid has been replaced, as was that of the Norwegian example. Perhaps they get lost or broken over time and people have to find a way of replacing them. But the pewter (?) lids look very similar so perhaps that was how they were sold.

It’s very gratifying that people ‘out there’ are reponding to what they see on this blog and helping to extend our knowledge of pieces in the collection.

Where will the next one turn up? Over to you good readers…

Visit to Hadrian’s Wall with the Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts

Further to the recent visit by the Friends of Castleshaw Roman Forts to the Manchester Museum to see the finds from the 1907-1908 excavations at Castleshaw, near Manchester, I went on the excursion to Vindolanda Roman fort yesterday organised by the Friends.  

Roman milecastle at Cawfields on Hadrian’s Wall

When we arrived at Vindolanda it was pouring with rain and rivulets were streaming down the coach windows. We made a beeline for the newly refurbished museum and saw the new displays, featuring some of the writing tablets for which the site is famous. Afterwards the weather had settled down and  we stopped off at Cawfields milecastle on Hadrian’s Wall to stretech our legs before the long journey back to Uppermill. The vallum, the earthwork that protected the wall from the south, stood out very clearly as this photo shows.  

The vallum at Cawfields

The new displays at the Vindolanda Museum are well-designed. One of the first cases you see is a particularly handsome case of Roman samian ware pottery. Though visually striking, the new displays seem not to offer the level of detailed information visitors used to enjoy in the old displays. The displays of Roman pottery are more generic and do not give the dates when the various wares were used on the site.

Roman samian pottery on display at Vindolanda

I particulary liked the mass of Roman leather sandals. Objects made of organic materials survives remarkably well in the anaerobic conditions on this site.

Leather sandals on display at Vindolanda Roman fort

 It made me think of the missing leather objects from Castleshaw Roman fort excavated in the early 20th century. They were last seen before the 1970s. Perhaps they will turn up like the neolithic stone axehead found in the Botany department of the Museum last week… If anyone out there has seen them or knows what hapened to them do please let Manchester Museum know.

Uppers of Roman shoes from the Pit at Castleshaw – what happened to them?

Hairdressing in Ancient Worlds

Shall I take it bit more off the top for you sir?

Another one of those unique opportunities to record an unusual  job in the Museum came up recently when Gabby, one of the conservation placements, was putting the facial reconstructions back in the second case.  

Philip II’s hair was in a slight state of disarray and Gabby kindly reached into the display to ‘tease those tangled tresses’ back into place.

Not a problem the real king would have troubled himself over unduly, I’d imagine, as he enforced Macedonian hegemony over Greece and made plans to take on the Persian Empire.

Had he troubled more over his coiffure, might the course of history have been different? Somehow I can’t imagine him saying: “Cancel the battle of Chaeronea – bad hair day!”

Or was it only the Spartans who took pains over their hair? The study of hair in archaeology and ancient history is by no means a brand new speciality but this must be pretty well unique as a niche activity!

Emptying Ancient Worlds

Emptying one of the Ancient Worlds cases (April 2013)

Shortly after the opening of the new Ancient Worlds last October, the curators and all the other staff who worked on the project, could have been forgiven for thinking that now they could get on with the rest of their lives. Only it didn’t quite work out like that. In any project, there are always what are euphemistically referred to as ‘snagging issues’ that have to be sorted out,  in the weeks following completion.

Ancient Worlds is no different. Some of the shelves needed consolidating and we picked up  a number of annoying errors in the labels that had evaded our proof-checking. We also received a number of comments from frustrated visitors who had struggled to read some of the labels.  For all these reasons we emptied the first gallery of objects last week to sort out the snagging.

Curatorial placement Anna Garnett and student volunteer Suzanna Haddow working in the archaeology gallery

I must admit I feared it would take a lot longer but fortunately we had some really wonderful support from volunteers and placements and members of the conservation team. Within a day or so we had emptied the cases.

The empty archaeology gallery

That was the week before last. The contractors came in and sorted out the shelves. Meanwhile I was sorting out the labels. We have switched to a card based system rather than using transparencies. Some visitors struggled to read the transparencies and printing them on card makes them more legible. Not only is it easier to read them, it gives us more flexibility if we want to change exhibits. With transparencies we would have had to empty the case and ask a contractor to come in and install the labels. With card labels we simply remove the card and have another printed.

Laser Cleaning II

Gabby cleaning plaster cast of Spartan Youth

As promised here is the rest of the information about laser cleaning.

There are three different types of laser used in conservation at the moment, UV, visible green light and Infra Red. For stone and plaster only visible green and infra red lights are used. The photo with a green flash is the visible green light laser but the infra-red cannot be seen with the naked eye, the flash is still occurring, only we can’t see it.

The lasers are class 4 lasers which means that they are extremely hazardous to the eye! Eye protection is required which block out 99.8 % of the light emitted. The class 4 laser means that light bouncing back from the surface is still strong enough to damage the eye, not just the light as it directly leaves the laser. As conservators are actively working on the object they need to be able to see what they are doing without fear of damaging their eyesight so glasses are available for each of the types of laser. They only block out the wavelength being emitted but allow all other wavelengths through. The light energy turns to heat energy at the point the beam interacts with a surface, this can produce a very high temperature and so can burn the skin! It is important to cover up skin and be careful not to allow the beam to pass over unprotected skin. Having said this, however, these lasers are used medically for skin conditions and tattoo removal treatments.

Plaster cast of Spartan youth during laser cleaning

One of the benefits of laser cleaning is that it allows porous surfaces like  plaster to be cleaned to a much higher standard than other more conventional techniques, such as solvent cleaning or dry cleaning. Solvent (acetone, and IMS and water 50:50) cleaning was tested on a plaster cast from the archaeology collection but caused some damage to the surface. Dry cleaning with a rubber was therefore carried out but left a patchy overall effect. The laser removed all of the black dirt and dust so a more uniform result was achieved. However, the technique was unable to remove the greasy yellow dirt from the surface left from sources such as handling. This is not unusual.

Plaster cast after laser cleaning

Another benefit from laser cleaning is  speed. The plaster cast only took 15-20 minutes to clean and that was shortly after Gabby and Abby had learned the technique so they were still being cautious! Cleaning the surface with a rubber took the best part of a day. Laser cleaning is therefore often used on large monumental statuary and architectural sculpture to save time.

Lasers can also be used as a form of non-contact cleaning so surfaces that might otherwise crumble when they were touched can be cleaned without causing further damage.

The course at the Conservation Centre in Liverpool was led by the laser technicians and sculpture conservator at the National Museums Liverpool. This is a requirement for using lasers in conservation in the UK. Manchester Museum will take delivery of an infra-red laser by the end of this week and we hope to start using it to prepare objects for the new Nature’s Library displays. The exhibits includes fossils and other geology objects, but the conservators will also be cleaning coral specimens as these are too fragile to attempt mechanical cleaning. Cleaning with lasers can be a little disconcerting at first as all that can be seen is a small circle of light on the object and then the dirt has disappeared. Also because it a ‘non-contact’ form of cleaning there is no feel of touch or pressure as with most other forms of cleaning. This makes you feel a little disconnected with what is happening. However the technique is very easy to pick up after completing a few practice pieces and the ease of use and effectiveness of the treatment makes it great fun to carry out.

Gaby kindly sent photos of ‘before’ and ‘after’ treatment with a rubber, as well as photos of the plaster cast after  cleaning it with the laser.

Laser Cleaning I

Gabby cleaning a plaster cast with a laser

A few days ago Gabrielle and Abby from the conservation section borrowed one of the plaster casts from the archaeology collection to take to a workshop about laser cleaning at the Conservation Centre in Liverpool. Gaby kindly took some photos and drafted some text to explain what is involved.

Lasers have been used to clean stone work and sculpture in conservation since the 1970s. The laser is a highly concentrated and strong light beam which is fired at the object and heats up the dirt layer making it expand quickly and so forcing it from the surface. The light is very directional and only affects a few microns of the surface at a time so is easy to control and does not damage the surface. The operator can also control the amount of energy which hits the surface by moving the pen closer and further away from the object.

Abby using the laser cleaner

As well as stone there are many other materials for which laser cleaning is being tested and developed including metals, paper, and organics like wood, feathers and fabric. It has to be remembered that lasers work very effectively in certain cases but many objects and materials are unsuitable for laser treatment or the dirt and dust is unresponsive to the treatment. So the laser is only another tool in the conservator’s tool kit and should be considered equally alongside other treatments.

Find out more in a future Blog!

Ancient Worlds Big Saturday 17th November 2012

Ancient Worlds Big Saturday: Shiree and Gaby with youngsters

Last Saturday 17th November was the Museum’s Big Saturday event to help celebrate the opening of our Ancient Worlds galleries. Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes and Vicky Grant, Primary Outreach Educator, organised some events and activities for visitors. Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and the Sudan, and I spent some time on the galleries talking to the public. Members of the Museum’s branch of the Young Archaeologists Club also came in to help piece together pieces of broken pottery from excavations in Manchester. Shiree and Gaby who are conservation student placements at the Museum were on hand to glue together broken pieces of pottery that the children were able to find. We have run this activity several times and each time it attracts as much interest from adults as from children.

Now where does that piece go?

Meanwhile I was talking to visitors in the galleries and using the Museum’s handling collection of ancient Greek artefacts as a talking point. People were really fascinated to find out about the objects, which included Classical pots and a replica of Mycenaean dagger. One of my favourites is a pot known as a lekythos showing ancient Greek warriors called hoplites fighting. This worked well with the ancient Greek Corinthian helmet on display in the gallery and the plaster cast of a frieze from a monument at Xanthos in Turkey.

Young visitor Haily looks at the ancient Greek objects

One young visitor called Haily was very interested in the Mycenaean dagger and drew a picture of it. I’ll post that image shortly.

Going Potty for Ancient Worlds

Samian pot from Manchester about to undergo conservation

The pace of work is really hotting up now that we’ve entered the last few weeks leading up to the opening of Ancient Worlds on 25th October. As well as checking proofs of the text and the layouts of the displays, we have been taking delivery of loan objects for the new displays and gathering in objects that, in some cases, have only recently been excavated.

The photo above shows a fragmentary Roman samian bowl that was found on the former Tom Garner Motors site at the junction of Great Jackson Street and Chester Road. It was found with a rather nice Roman altar dedicated to the Mother Goddesses back in 2008. The altar is on display in the Museum’s Manchester Gallery. The kind people at Pre-Construct Archaeology kindly got the pot to us, together with a flagon, about ten days ago. They are being worked on by two conservation students who are doing a placement with the Museum, Shiree Roberts and Gabby Flexer from University College London and the University of Durham respectively. Both are studying for a Masters in conservation.

The next photo shows the pot reconstructed.

Shiree working on the Roman samian pot

When I called in earlier today to check on progress Shiree was busy in-filling joins and matching the in-fill to the colour of the samian bowl.

Maximus Factor? A cosmetic job on the samian bowl from Manchester.

It’s a work of art as much as it is a science and you really have to take your hat to the dedicated students who come and work on placements here and make the material presentable to the general public.

Samian pot nearing completion of its makeover

The Roman altar was found by Sarah Duffy of Bolton who was working for Pre-Construct Archaeology on what was only her second dig. It would be great if we could establish contact with Sarah to record an interview about what it was like to discover these Roman antiquities. If you’re out there Sarah and reading this do please contact us at the Manchester Museum.