A Trio of Mystery Objects for Identification

Object for identification

August is clearly the time of year for reporting unusual discoveries to the Museum’s identificatiosn service. The unusual metal object above was brought into the Museum. It has a silvery or white metal look to it but it’s not heavy enough to be iron or steel or lead. It looks like a casting because it has a very regular smooth and curving  surface on one side and a rough texture on the other (shown above).

Smooth surface

The tip is quite battered and worn from rubbing or scraping it against something else and there is a slight lip where the material has been pushed back so it must be relatively soft. I don’t think this has been deliberately made as an object. It is not a knife or a sword. If it has had a use I suspect that it was opportunistic. The shape of the thing happened to meet the needs of whoever picked it up. As it was found on St Anne’s beach in Blackpool is it possible even that it was used to remove barnacles off the bottom of a ship? I don’t know. If it is man-made rather than natural I doubt it is much older than say Georgian or Victorian but that’s just a gut feeling. I’d be grateful if anyone who has seen something like this before and might know what it is would contact me.

Tip of ‘object’

David Gelsthorpe, Curator of Palaeontology, who is responsible for the Musuem’s minerals collection kindly looked at the object very briefly on the way to a meeting and thought it might be natural and of mineralogical origin, say iron pyrites because of its crystalline structure.

Mystery object from Greece

Another mystery object that came into the Museum for identification is shown in the photo above. The enquirer brought it back from a holiday in Greece, though it’s best not to remove material from the country of origin. It’s hemispherical and the surface has lots of decoration. The reverse is more corroded but it has two ribs. The corrosion products are greenish so it appears to be made of copper alloy. I asked some of my Greek archaeologist contacts if they recognized it. One suggested it might be a brooch for a cloak or the decorative head of a pin or a button. It reminds me of the small, round, concave shield called an aspis that was carried by Greek soldiers called phalangites. This, obviously, is far too small to be a shield but the decoration is reminiscent of the depictions of shields in northern Africa about the time of the Punic Wars.

Back of the object

Finally, to complete the hat-trick of mystery, here’s a bronze tool with a rat tail tang where the handle was attached (long since rotted away). What’s interesting about it is that the blade isn’t sharp as you might expect and there are facets or champfers on either side.

Bronze tool

They can be seen more clearly on the image below. It’s as if the cutting edge is on the outside edges of the tool. Is it some kind of burin? The metal used might suggest it is of Bronze Age date but if so it is incredibly well-preserved. Perhaps it was made for a spark-free environment environment in more recent times to prevent fires or explosions; or perhaps it is a specialised piece of kit used by a saddler, for instance.

Mystery bronze tool showing champfer.

If any one can shed any light on what these objects are I’d be grateful if they woud contact me via the comments function on this blog. Thank you.

Guest Blog about the ‘Future Curators’ placement by Anna Garnett

 

Anna decanting one of the cases in the Ancient Worlds galleries.

The second part of my HLF-funded British Museum ‘Future Curators’ placement began in spring 2013 when I started working as a curatorial trainee at Manchester Museum with the Curator of Ancient Egypt and Sudan, Dr. Campbell Price. I’ve been very lucky to have had the opportunity already to work on a wide range of projects including outreach and education, museum tours, and object research; recently I helped out with the refreshment of the Discovering Archaeology gallery (see photo above), when I gained valuable experience of object handling as all of the objects were temporarily removed from the gallery while the work was going on.

This particular job wasn’t quite as easy as it sounds: some of the objects were very heavy or very fragile for example, and it was very important to ensure the safety and security of all the objects as they were moved to and from the museum store, but it was very enjoyable – it’s not every day that you get the chance to handle beautiful Bronze Age gold jewellery or Roman coin hoards!

I will be here in Manchester until December 2013, so I’ve still got a bit of time left to make sure I gain a well-rounded curatorial experience! The third and final round of the Future Curators programme will be advertised shortly and I highly recommend that you apply if you too dream one day of being a museum curator…

Condition checking objects on loan from the British Museum in the touring ‘Pharaoh: King of Egypt’ exhibition

The ‘Future Curators’ Programme gives five trainees, with a range of different specialisations, the opportunity to spend six months working and gaining curatorial skills at the British Museum, then a further 12 months working as a curatorial trainee in one of the British Museum’s UK Partner Museums, using those practical skills in the workplace. This programme is a unique opportunity to gain first-hand practical curatorial experience which is ideal preparation for a future career as a museum curator; this year trainees specialised in the areas of Middle East, Asia, Prehistory & Europe, Oceania, and Egypt and Sudan.

From June-December 2012 I worked in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan at the British Museum – a place I’ve wanted to work since I was a child! – assisting the Assistant Keeper of the Sudanese and Nubian collection, Dr. Derek Welsby. During this time I had the opportunity to work on many different projects including gallery redevelopment, collections care, object documentation, and exhibitions and loans.

Learning how to mount objects by pinning

For example, I was involved in the organisation and installation of a long-term loan of Sudanese material from the British Museum, including pottery, stone axes and jewellery, which was requested for Manchester Museum’s newly-refurbished Discovering Archaeology gallery. This was an exciting project for which I was asked to choose the objects for loan, to write the label, to help with the loan documentation and to actually come to Manchester and install those objects in their new case, which you are able to see today.

A new acquisition in the Ancient Worlds displays

Gold signet ring of the Prestwich family of Hulme, Manchester (courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum)

The new Ancient Worlds galleries opened on Thursday 25th. It was quite a night and I was talking to people from the VIP preview at 5pm until the Museum closed about 8pm.

I couldn’t resist a wry smile beforehand when one of the guests asked me if there was going to be more prehistory in the galleries. Even more so when he raised an eyebrow in response to my statement that we were showing a 17th century gold signet ring. ‘What, in Ancient Worlds?’ he asked.

I explained that we weren’t trying to tell the story of a particular region or a period of time in our new displays but exploring aspects of archaeology through the work of a number of different guides or characters. Each of them illustrates an aspect of the archaeological collections or work in various sub-disciplines of the subject.

In this way a newly acquired gold signet ring relating to the Prestwich family of Manchester found by a metal-detectorist in North Yorkshire is relevant in the context of the work of a Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme. Many of the exhibits in that section are of great antiquity but a 17th century ring still illustrates the principles and the rules and regulations surrounding treasure.

Amazing to think that I only collected the ring a week ago from the British Museum and there it is on display in the table case in Ancient Worlds. We are extremely grateful to the V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Headley Museums Archaeological Acquisitions Trust for their financial support, without which we could not have acquired the ring.

Can you find this ring in the Ancient Worlds displays? It’s the Prestwich family gold ring. Clue: it’s in Vanessa Oakden’s section and if you look carefully you’ll see the number of the label…

Pretender Unmasked?

Links from bracelet

Now seems to be the season for finding lots of interesting stories about fakes and forgeries and objects that might not be what they seem at first glance. We are putting some fakes and forgeries as well as copies of objects in the Ancient Worlds displays opening on 30th October.

Just before Xmas a member of the public brought some objects into the Manchester Museum for identification. They are silvery-looking links from a bracelet. Each link shows a different design: there’s a castle tower or turret, the head of an archbishop and so on.  They might not look particularly old but I remembered seeing something very similar about 20 years ago reported by a metal-detectorist to the Hull Museum where I was then working. I’d forgotten all about it until I came across an image of the item in a Portable Antiquities Scheme publication. Caroline Barton, Assistant Treasure Registrar at the British Museum, kindly found the reference in a 2003 report. The link was identified as ‘medieval’ and ‘c.1450’.  Caroline sent me an image:-

It is pretty well identicial to the links brought in recently. Compare the photo above with the link in the centre of the photo at the top of this Blog and you’ll see. The enquirer told me that she had purchased the links in a charity shop in Manchester. She thinks they had come from a house clearance. This suggests that the link I saw in Hull in the 1990s cannot be of medieval date and is much more likely to be  modern. You can see the virtually complete bracelet on a Blog for the Medieval section of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society. Something like 20 years after the event I can at last get some closure on what the object was and its date. I suspect the links were part of a bracelet made in, say, the 1950s. I feel sure there must be a complete example somewhere out there. It would be great to see one intact. If anyone out there has one do let me know.