British Museum Research Articles

DIGITAL REPLICAS OF BRITISH MUSEUM ARTEFACTS

Abstract. The digitisation of museum exhibits has played an essential role in geomatics research for generating digital replicas, as it offers the chance to address rather challenging issues. The use of different sensors, ranging from active to passive, and also structured light scanners or hybrid solutions, the various destinations and purposes of the final results combined with the extreme variety of possible objects have made it a field of investigation highly inquired in the literature.The present study aims to analyse and discuss a digitalisation workflow applied to four Sumerian civilisation masterpieces preserved in the British Museum. The dense and accurate 3D point clouds derived from a specimen of Articulated Arm Coordinate Measuring Machines in collaboration with Faro technologies have twofold roles: ground truth and geometric reference of the final digital replicas. Digital photogrammetry is employed to enrich the models with the relevant radiometric component. The significant contribution results, exploiting co-registration strategies, offer careful guidance of a photogrammetric protocol created in a highly controlled environment combined with skilful expedients and devices. The proposed approach enables the acquisition of high-quality and radiometrically balanced images and improves the possibility of automating the masking procedure before the photogrammetric processing.

Applicability and efficacy of an enhanced nanolime consolidation technique for British Museum limestone objects

Stone consolidation is one of the most important and complex treatment actions performed in museums. However, products routinely applied on limestone objects are often chemically incompatible with the treated substrate. Despites the established efficiency of nanolime for outdoor conservation and its chemical compatibility with the carbonate mineral matrix, its performance in a museum context needs to be verified. As a result, this work addresses a shortcoming in the field of Stone Conservation as nanolime has never been officially introduced in museums before. Three British Museum limestone objects affected by superficial damages were treated using an Enhanced Nanolime Consolidation Technique (En−NCT) which was developed in the Materials Engineering Research Institute (Sheffield Hallam University) and tested for the first time in a museum context. The results show that the use of alcoholic nanolime by means of a tailored consolidation technique is a realistic and promising museum conservation approach. The En−NCT does not impair the aesthetical appearance of the objects and restores the mineral cohesion of the treated surface by increasing the hardness of the near-to-surface layers.

Lost or Unprovenanced? The Suggested Fate of an Important Archaeological Discovery (an Aureus of Trajan) from Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum)

In 1770 an aureus of the Emperor Trajan was found by the north wall of the churchyard at Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum). This was a very important archaeological discovery as contemporary antiquarian reports provide a clear description of the coin in addition to detailing the precise find spot. Subsequently the aureus disappeared from the historical record but, in this note, historical and numismatic evidence is presented suggesting that an unprovenanced coin now in the British Museum - R.7569 - is the lost Aldborough aureus.

India: A History in Objects by T. Richard Blurton

India: A History in Objects is yet another book that tries to understand India through its objects. Yet, an object is more than an object, particularly in India. In addition to a patron and a creator, it likely had an environment that fostered it, a textual source that inspired it, and a timeless creative tradition that sustained it. Such an object creates relationships with objects around it, usually as part of a religious or cultural tradition, meant mainly for its subjective, inward, aesthetic experience.An encyclopedic work like this one can have much to offer about its subject matter even if it lacks academic depth and treats objects of art as mere ephemeral curiosities. To be fair, Blurton makes this point himself at the outset. The title of the book is also a misnomer; the objects are not from every museum that makes a contribution to the history of the subcontinent; it is primarily a guide to the Indian art collection at the British Museum, intended for casual visitors, not for scholars doing serious research. With more than 500 illustrations, the book is a visual delight, despite its lack of academic vigor. Through a bird’s-eye view, Blurton attempts to connect today’s India with its past.Blurton presents a vast chronology from the Indus Civilization to the British Raj, covering many of the intervening dynasties. As mainly a visual tour, with only a simple and attenuated text, it will saturate readers’ eyes more than it will stimulate their intellects. The captions of the images are succinct but sufficient.Blurton does well to include not only objects from the Hindu tradition but also from the Buddhist, Jain, and Islamic traditions, in India as well as elsewhere in the sub-continent. His broad sweep fittingly encompasses objects in daily use, like the pan box and huqqa base; a feature of Indian art is its seamless blending of the quotidian and the classical.By including both photography and objects, Blurton is able to draw attention to a wide variety of art forms. He restores some degree of academic strength to the book via his introductions to such noteworthy chapters as “Dynasties and the Rise of Buddhism,” “Shiva Nataraja,” “Rural Cultures,” and Film and Cinema. By restricting himself to the British Museum, however, he is unable to incorporate significant objects within the genres that he presents. In the section entitled “Paintings From the Punjab Hills,” he makes no reference to Kangra and Raja Sansar Chand, among other places. In the genre of Rajput Paintings, he fails to give the ateliers of Bikaner, Kishangarh, Bundi, et al. their due. The chapter about Ragamala paintings makes no mention of the Ragamala texts or the seed mantras from which the paintings emanated. The absence of any allusion to underlying, seminal primary works—whether temples, poetry, paintings, or sculpture—is a consistent problem in the book. A comprehensive bibliography would have been helpful to serious students of Indian art.Overall, this book belongs on a coffee table rather than on a library bookshelf, but it makes enjoyable reading, lightly touching many objects and their histories. Readers can open the book to any page and embark on a pleasure trip. The book will certainly appeal to anyone interested in the long history of beautiful objects created on the Indian sub-continent.

Shavian Perspectives on the Cusp of Change and War (Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, and St. Joan)

Shavian Perspectives on the Cusp of Change and War (Pygmalion, Heartbreak House, <i>and</i> St. Joan)

Reflections on the bizarre unexplained head injury of child mummy EA 54053 housed at the British museum

Reflections on the bizarre unexplained head injury of child mummy EA 54053 housed at the British museum

Beyond Busulfan: Building a Better Conditioner for Bone Marrow Transplantation

Beyond Busulfan: Building a Better Conditioner for Bone Marrow Transplantation

‘Definite cataloguing rules set down in writing’: Antonio Panizzi’s Rules and the catalogue’s manifestations

The authors evaluate the symbolic value of the 91 rules published in 1841, as incipit of the first volume of the Catalogue of printed books of the British Museum, declaring its founding basis, and legitimizing the growing reputation of Antonio Panizzi at the same time. Monument of the élites and Trustees of the British Museum Library, the 91 were preceded by 73 rules, printed and distributed only among the cataloguers of the library in March 1839. The essay explains the existence of a normative stratification and evolution of the rules (oral tradition, limited circulation, revision and wider diffusion) and therefore the need for an archeology of knowledge’s approach. The novelties of the first cataloging code reside in the passage from an empirical to a conscious approach to the functions of the catalogue, while the printing of the catalogue is considered by Panizzi an antieconomical manifestation. The catalogue had not yet found its expressive paradigm, consolidated only today in the format of an open digital work, constantly updated.

73 vs. 91: drafting a code for new alphabetical catalog of the British Museum

The paper, starting from the draft of 73 Rules Museum proposed by Panizzi to the Trustees in March 1839, aims at bringing out Panizzi’s underlying design for the new alphabetical catalog of the British Museum. Two temporal perspectives are crossed in contextualizing the process of drafting the rules: one of shorter duration, with a focus on items and actors of a confrontation that became intense between 1834 and 1839; and another, of a wider time span, aimed at reconstructing the conflicts of bibliographic cultures, the lines of tradition and the originality of Panizzi’s approach. At the bottom of the draft, there is an intellectual wager: although in the context constraints, to go beyond the boundaries of the English bibliographic traditions of the time by opening up to other bibliographic cultures. The most stimulating perspective comes from Audiffredi’s lesson mediated by a principle of exactitude which, if in the most immediate references has roots in the highest peaks of the contemporary French bibliographic culture (Barbier and Querard), draws its sap from the erudite tradition of the Italian eighteenth century (Tiraboschi). The paper discusses whether and what changes were made to this design in the passage from 73 to 91.

BIMETALLIC PICK-AXE FROM THE DNIPRO FOREST-STEPPE LEFT BANK: CAUSE FOR CONVERSATION ABOUT THE SIMILAR ARMAMENT OF EARLY SCYTHIAN EPOCH IN EURASIA

The paper is devoted to a newfound artefact of the Scythian archaic epoch — a bimetallic pick-axe, discovered in the Vorskla River basin, near the city of Akhtyrka of Sumy region of Ukraine. Pick-axes are a kind of close-in fighting weapon, along with picks and axes, quite rare for the Scythian Age. The specimen under study belongs to a relatively small group of bimetallic pick-axes, consisting of an iron (or steel) warhead and a bronze socket. Like most bimetallic pick-axes, the specimen from Akhtyrka has a bird’s head with slotted eyes and a curved beak (part of the beak is lost) under the striker, cast together with the socket.&#x0D; The bimetallic pick-axes from Akhtyrka is, at the moment, the most western reliable find of this type of weapon. The paper includes a catalog of bimetallic pick-axes of the early Scythian Age from Eurasia, numbering 24 items: 2 — Western Siberia, 4 — Southern Urals, 3 — Volga-Kama region, 3 — Western Asia (3; most likely 2 pick-axes kept in the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum are from the same region), Aral Sea (1), Colchis, Western Georgia (3), North Caucasus (2), Kuban (1), Taman (1), Northern Azov region, Eastern Ukraine (1), Vorskla basin, Eastern Ukraine (1). Most of the bimetallic pick-axes (18 items) have a sculptural image of a bird’s head between the striker and the socket.&#x0D; The main chronological indicators of the time of existence of the bimetallic pick-axes are 4 assemblages: mound 84 of the Uygarak burial ground (first half of the 7th century BC); mound 5 of the Kichigino-I burial ground (second half — late 7th century BC); grave G of the Ananyino ground burial; grave near the village of Imirler (both — second half of the 7th — early 6th century BC). In the light of the discussion that has been going on for more than 20 years about the dating of the early Scythian culture, it seems important that none of these complexes dates back to the 8th century BC. Accordingly, the time of existence of bimetallic pick-axes must be attributed to the 7th — first half of the 6th century BC.&#x0D; The chronological priority of the Uygarak pick-axe in relation to the Asia Minor pick-axes allows us to conclude that the latter are markers of the advance of the Saka military contingent to the Middle East, as part of the famous Asia Minor campaigns of the Scythians. Accordingly, the finds of pick-axes in the Caucasus, the Kuban region and Eastern Ukraine should be considered as markers of the movement of some part of the Scythian military contingent to Europe during or immediately after the Asiatic campaigns. The concentration of pick-axes in the area of the Ananyino culture is explained by the migration of part of the Scythian or Saka military contingent, recorded by Herodotus.&#x0D; The dating of the main chronological indicators makes it possible to draw a correlation with bronze pick-axes, which have become widespread in the eastern regions of Eurasia. The variety of forms of bronze pick-axes from Southern Siberia, Altai and Tuva, as well as their chronological priority, allow us to conclude that bimetallic pick-axes are derived from bronze ones. Apparently, in the first half of the 7th century BC a technological innovation takes place, as a result of which the bronze blade are replaced with an iron / steel plate inserted into a bronze socket. The currently available archaeological sources make it possible to connect this innovation with the Aral Sea region and the historical Sakas but it is still premature to draw final conclusions.

Plague, quarantine, and environmental design in nineteenth century Odesa

ABSTRACT The role of urban planning and architecture in mitigating infectious diseases has lately attracted more scholarly attention. The paper explores an epidemic of plague in nineteenth-century Odesa (then the Russian Empire, now Ukraine) and argues that the city's development was fundamentally linked to activities focused on preventing the disease's reoccurrence and creating a healthy urban environment. It analyzes never discussed visual materials from the collections of the Hermitage Museum, State Museum in Berlin, Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA), British Museum, and Library of Congress and places them in the context of literary work, mainly travellers’ diaries and memoirs of contemporaries. Although over the last two decades, several publications focused on Odesa's history, literature, culture, and social life came into existence, the urban development and architecture of this metropolis have yet to garner sufficient scholarly attention. The article focuses on primary sources making new attributions of visual materials. It illuminates such essential aspects of urban life as health and hygiene, sanitation, design of open green spaces, and control of air and water supplies. It also helps to understand the architectural solutions for mitigating infectious disease and establishing Odesa as one of the leaders in pandemic-related development at the time.

Neutron tomography of sealed copper alloy animal coffins from ancient Egypt

Animal mummification was commonplace in ancient Egypt, with the remains of many animals placed inside statues or votive boxes with representations of animals or hybrid human–animal creatures. Votive boxes were made from a variety of materials and often sealed; some boxes are still preserved in this state in museum collections. A prior study of sealed copper alloy votive boxes from the collection of the British Museum used X-ray computed tomography to search for animal remains, where poor image quality resulted due to attenuation from the boxes and apparent dense metals inside. In this study, neutron tomography was applied to six of the votive boxes previously examined. Animal remains, likely from lizards, and fragments of textile wrappings were discovered inside three of the boxes. Evidence of the manufacturing process and subsequent repairs of the boxes were uncovered by neutrons. Significant quantities of lead were also identified in three boxes. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of neutron tomography for the study of mummified remains inside sealed metal containers, and give evidence linking the animal figures represented on top of votive boxes to the concealed remains.

Roots and routes: Literary archaeologies of British museums in contemporary Black and Asian poetry

This article explores some of the ways in which contemporary poets are tracing the roots and routes via which objects have come to, and continue to, reside within the walls of the museum. Focusing on poetic mediations of British Museums — on the Museum of London, the Manchester Museum, and the British Museum — the article analyses the works of Bernardine Evaristo, Inua Ellams, and Daljit Nagra. These poetic mediations can be read as literary archaeologies — as the concept is used by Evaristo — which speak to the histories, movements, and contemporaneous moments of colonial encounter that take place within the institution of the museum. The article moves to consider the way in which literary archaeologies might chart both a history of migration — looking at Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe — and the migration of objects which are displayed in museums in Britain — with a focus on Inua Ellams’s poem Tusk — before going on to examine the museum as institution, as it is presented in Daljit Nagra’s collection British Museum. Setting these distinct, but complementary poetic interventions alongside one another, the article asks: how do these literary archaeologies respond to the histories and present-day stories told by — and about — British museums in the twenty-first century?

Reclaiming History in the British Museum entranceway: imperialism, patronage and female, queer and black legacies

ABSTRACT Today the British Museum (BM) entranceway consecrates imperialism and patronage. Undertaken as a journey, this paper reclaims its invisible female, queer and black legacies. In recent years there has been widespread acknowledgement that the BM needs to address its role in the British Empire. Yet, in the twenty-first century, the museum has shored up its imperial inheritance through its refurbished entranceway: the Weston Great Hall and Queen Elizabeth II Great Court. In these introductory chambers, imperialism provides the backdrop for the contemporary donors’ names and exclusive corporate events. Here, museum heritage has become an arrow that signals progress through economic capital. I argue that the BM’s reinforcement of its imperial legacy in the twenty-first century has come at the expense of other claims. Exploration of the historic entranceway shows it facilitated visitors’ long-term engagement through artmaking on-site and the (now closed) Reading Room. Female, queer and black participants undertook creative, transgressive and political activities that led to social change. Anne Seymour Damer, Joel Augustus Rogers and Virginia Woolf developed practices that have particular significance for the museum. Reclaiming hidden female, queer and black legacies in the entranceway points to future inclusions. Importantly, these reclaimed histories are not quiet, counter moments pulled from the corners of the BM’s vast estate; rather, they once took centre stage.

Attributions of Authorship in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1827–1830: A Supplement to the Union List

The following list consists of eighty-six new attributions of authorship (and three corrected ones) of anonymous, pseudonymous, or incompletely signed letters, articles, drawings, reviews, poems, obituaries, and staff notes appearing in the Gentleman’s Magazine (hereafter GM) during the years 1827–1830. The period covered in this list encompasses the first four years of the editorial stewardship of John Bowyer Nichols, John Nichols’s son and longtime partner, who succeeded his father as sole conductor of the magazine upon the latter’s death on 26 November 1826 and thus assumed the persona of ‘Sylvanus Urban’, the GM’s fictitious editor, in his own right. The authorial attributions that follow constitute the latest installment in my ongoing efforts to supplement my Attributions of Authorship in the Gentleman’s Magazine, 1731–1868: An Electronic Union List (Charlottesville, VA: Bibliographical Society of the University of Virginia, 2003), https://bsuva.org/bsuva/gm2 (accessed 28 February 2023). The overwhelming majority of the fifty-one contributors whose writings and drawings appear below consists of antiquaries, clergymen, artists, and architects, a predictable assemblage consistent with the fact that for some years John Bowyer Nichols had been reorienting the GM more and more along the path of antiquarian concerns. Other contributors represented in the following list include poets, historians, schoolmasters, members of the legal community, art collectors, and a Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, as well as various miscellaneous writers.

Moon Witch, Spider King

Moon Witch, Spider King

Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects ed. by Barbara Penner et al.

Reviewed by: Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects ed. by Barbara Penner et al. Allison Marsh (bio) Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects Edited by Barbara Penner, Adrian Forty, Olivia Horsfall Turner, and Miranda Critchley. London: Reaktion Books, 2021. Pp. 400. Ever since Neil MacGregor published A History of the World in 100 Objects in 2010 as a joint project between the British Museum and BBC Radio 4, there have been imitators. Richard Kurin upped the ante by one to tell The Smithsonian's History of America in 101 Objects. Adrian Hon took a futuristic account in A New History of the Future in 100 Objects, in which he imagined a curator in the year 2082 writing an object-based book as a fictional commentary of the twenty-first century. With Extinct, editors Barbara Penner, Adrian Forty, Olivia Horsfall Turner, and Miranda Critchley go in a different direction. Unbound by geography or chronology or even the round number of one hundred (they feature eighty-five objects), Extinct is a collection of individual essays from the mundane and ubiquitous (T-shirt plastic bag) to the truly unique (Cybersyn). Although the editors collectively refer to the case studies as objects, they acknowledge in the introduction that the essays include tools, equipment, structures, and infrastructures related to modern life. All of the essays follow a similar pattern: a single main image, three pages of text, and a possible secondary image. Arranged in alphabetical order with each essay standing on its own, there is no need to read the book linearly from beginning to end. It is just as much fun to open the book to a page and start reading as it is to go from one essay to the next trying to make connections. [End Page 580] And connections do exist. The overall project is a commentary on technological progress. The delightful introduction, authored by all four editors, begins with a quote from Charles Darwin explaining natural selection as a tendency "to progress towards perfection." Acknowledging the challenges in applying a natural phenomenon to human-made objects, the authors then unfold a lovely literature review, from Lewis Mumford's Technics and Civilization through Sigfried Giedion's Mechanization Takes Command to David Edgerton's Shock of the Old, weaving together theories from history, industrial design, and economics. Extinct is a slippery word, especially considering some of the objects have never truly disappeared, and so the editors propose six different categories of extinction: "failed" (such as the Concorde) for objects that are truly dead; "superseded" (Kodak Flashcube) for objects that have lost out in technological evolution to more advanced or efficient objects; "enforced" (Fisher-Price peg figures) for items whose end came by way of government policy or regulatory bodies; "defunct" (optical telegraph) for items that never took off or fell victim to changing tastes; "aestivated" (Chinese dougong) for objects that became extinct but were later revived in a new fashion; and finally "visionary" (Edison's anti-gravitation underclothing) for experimental prototypes that fell victim to constraints such as cost, politics, imagination, or reality. The only nod to these interesting categories of extinction is a grayscale label in the footer under each essay. It would have been logical to organize the book along these typologies, but I applaud the editors for sticking to their alphabetical order. I suspect it would be boring to read a dozen examples of superseded technologies in a row; it is much more engaging to ponder the different reasons objects go extinct with unexpected juxtapositions of time and place. Within the academic realm, individual essays could be assigned at any level of undergraduate or graduate studies in courses on the history of technology, design, or economics. As a whole, the book could be used in material culture or museum studies courses to inspire future curators, though it does not provide the typical close readings of the objects or explain how to situate them within different exhibits, instead opting to explore their broader social and cultural significance. Beyond the academy, I could see this book as a lovely gift for anyone who has a predilection for collecting. Extinct is a beautiful book—the photographs are captivating, and the essays are insightful...

Gods, Goddesses, and Mortals for the 21st Century: The Reinstallation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art

Gods, Goddesses, and Mortals for the 21st Century: The Reinstallation of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Collection of Ancient Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art

한국 고대 여인상을 활용한 문화상품 디자인 개발 -국립중앙박물관과 국립경주박물관의 전시ㆍ소장품을 중심으로-

This study aims to identify ancient Korean figure of woman exhibited and collected in the National Museum of Korea and the Gyeongju National Museum and to analyzed the current status of cultural products related to figure of woman in domestic and foreign museums. In addition, it is to present the design of cultural products using the figure of woman representing Korea. This study combined literature research and empirical research. As a result of the study, it was confirmed that there are clay figure of woman from the Neolithic Age, Silla, and Unified Silla as ancient figure of woman in Korea. This study analyzed cultural products related to figure of woman in online stores in domestic and foreign museums. The British Museum is developing exclusive products, and the Louvre Museum is developing creative products through collaboration with artists or specific brands. In the case of the Metropolitan Museum of Art case, the Met Store is developed various cultural products. Multiple products were being designed in museums in other countries. Although the National Museum Cultural Foundation is in charge of the cultural assets of national museums in Korea, it lacks the diversity of products and accessibility of museum shops compared to museums in other countries. The only cultural product related to the figure of woman confirmed so far is the Silla figure figurine magnet depicting the figure of woman adorned on the National Treasure No. 135. T-shirt items are popular and practical. However, finding t-shirts as cultural products in Korean museums is challenging. Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 was used to design a t-shirt with the motif of three Korean figure of woman. This study will serve as primary data for developing cultural product design that can represent Korea.

Inside the History Lab

For more than two hundred years the Elgin Marbles, pictured on the cover of the March 2023 issue of the American Historical Review, have been the subject of one of the longest transnational cultural disputes in the world. Named after the British aristocrat who oversaw their removal from the Parthenon in what was then Ottoman-controlled Athens, they have been in the collection of the British Museum in London since the early nineteenth century. Beginning in the 1830s, the Greek government asked the British to return the marbles. Those Greek demands have continued to the present day, but the British have been steadfast in their insistence that the marbles were legally acquired and have refused to return them. Very recently, however, a new set of high-profile negotiations between Greece and Great Britain over the Elgin Marbles may finally bring this impasse to an end.1 If the parties do reach a settlement, it would come in the wake of a transformative set of campaigns beginning in the 1970s for the cultural restitution of objects brought to Europe and the United States in and after the era of high imperialism. In Germany, Belgium, France, and the United States, several museums have returned more than a thousand looted artifacts known as the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. French and American museums are beginning to return stolen Khmer antiquities under pressure from the Cambodian government. Protocols have emerged in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and at the United Nations for the return of Indigenous cultural property and remains to tribes and First Nations.2