The Festival of British Archaeology is an annual 16 day event (this year 16?31 July) and aims to encourage visits to ?sites of archaeological/historical interest or museums, heritage and resource centres, to see archaeology in action and to take part in activities on-site.?
To celebrate, UCL Institute of Archaeology, the fourth largest archaeology collection in the world (behind the Cairo Museum, The British Museum and the Ägyptisches Museum, Berlin), held an Open Day on 27 July with many activities throughout the department and tours of their main collections store by Ian Carroll (Collections Manager), one of which I attended.
The Institute of Archaeology was founded in 1937 as a centre for archaeological training, originally independent of the University of London, but joined with UCL in 1986. It now also holds responsibility for the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the overall collection numbers more than 80,000 items, making the Institute owner of the largest departmental collection in Britain.
The basement holds many of these items in the main store, as well as the laboratories, the student common room and a few postgraduate offices.
The conversion to these areas was partly funded by the sale of Indiana Jones? whip from the 1981 film, Raiders of the Lost Ark! (This was actually the winning fact from @loftroll as part of the UCL Trivia Twitter challenge)
1st Prize
Charlotte Frearson (@loftroll)
#UCLtrivia Labs in UCL Inst. of Archaelology were funded, in part, by the sale of Indiana Jones' hat and whip from Harrison Ford himself!
During the object-handling session we looked at a range of items, from Egyptian necklaces and Greek coins to one-million-year-old stone weapons, and lots in between. My overwhelming response to everything was that it was all much lighter to hold than I expected. I particularly liked comparing my hand size to that of the hominids that used the stone weapon one million years ago (hominids being the family group that humans belong to) and finding it extremely similar, although I do have quite small hands!
The tour itself was full and I was pleased to see a wide range of ages in the group, from young children (I would guess six or seven years old) through teenagers, their parents and their grandparents. While explaining the history of the Institute, Ian Carroll kept the younger audience engaged by asking questions exploring how archaeological artefacts are preserved and what might be missing from any collection. This emphasis on archaeology as a process of deduction and puzzle solving appealed to all ages within the group and allowed everyone to think about problems at their own level.
Overall I found the tour very interesting; I learnt a lot about archaeology and remembered a lot I?d forgotten I knew! The children in my group were enthralled by the objects and loved being able to handle things, and visitors with very different levels of knowledge all found it engaging.
The next Open Day at the Institute is 17 September, as part of London Open House 2011.
