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Book chapter
The Mystery of the Fettercairn Jewel
When the Fettercairn Jewel was discovered wrapped in paper at the back of a drawer at Fettercairn House, Aberdeenshire, in 2017. It was quickly recognised as an astounding piece of late sixteenth-century jewellery. But with little recorded provenance, and no obvious clues to its early history, it posed many questions.Wyld, Helen
Renaissance, material culture, Scottish history, art history, and jewellery history
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Book
Decoding the jewels: Renaissance jewellery in Scotland
For the first time, National Museums Scotland’s important collection of Renaissance jewellery from Scotland is considered together alongside significant jewels from the Royal Collection and elsewhere. The book was inspired by the acquisition by NMS of the extraordinary Fettercairn Jewel: the fine iconography of this exquisitely enamelled locket held coded...Groundwater, Anna
Stuarts, material culture, art history, jewellery history, Mary Queen of Scots, objects, Renaissance, and Scottish history
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Book
Scottish Furniture: 1500 - 1914
Scotland's furniture evolved against a background of social and cultural change that included religious reformation, civil war, union with England and participation in rapidly expanding commercial empire. The contribution of the country's finest workshops has been overlooked in general histories of British furniture and sever decades of scholarly research is... -
Journal article
Nostalgia in the prehistoric archaeological record
Evidence from the prehistoric archaeological record clearly shows that ancient societies had a sense of and engaged with their own histories, be it by reusing, re-appropriating or recreating past material culture. The affective qualities of materials, places and even human remains would have enabled people to remember and connect with...Knight, Matthew G
material culture, human remains, reuse, materials, prehistoric archaeological record, recreation, and re-appropriation
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Book
The material landscapes of Scotland’s jewellery craft, 1780-1914
During the long 19th century, Scotland was home to an established body of skilled jewellers who were able to access a range of materials from the country's varied natural landscape: precious gold and silver; sparkling crystals and colourful stones; freshwater pearls, shells and parts of rare animals. Following these materials...Laurenson, Sarah
contemporary collecting, crafts, precious metals, Scotland, jewellery, natural environment, and material culture
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Book chapter
New Kingdom jewellery
The technological study of a small number of objects produced mainly in the 18th Dynasty provides new data that can be related, typologically or geographically, to earlier studied objects. The analysis of the jewellery assemblage from tomb 296 at Riqqa, and of earrings from different sites, provides information on the...Guerra, Maria F ; Troalen, Lore G ; La Niece, Susan ; Meeks, Nigel ; Quirke, Stephen …
jewellery assemblage analysis, Qurna burial, 18th Dynasty, material culture, and tomb 296 at Riqqa
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Abstract
How to collect a crisis: Displaying and collecting COVID-19
COVID-19 is not the first, nor will it be the last, global pandemic or health crisis. The Influenza pandemic of 1918 killed an estimate 50 million people worldwide and had far reaching impact and consequences. However, in the National Museums Scotland collection, made up of 12 million objects, only two...Goggins, Sophie
personal stories, scientific and medical objects , global pandemic , COVID-19, museum collections, and material culture
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Book chapter
Material worlds
This chapter considers material culture themes beyond any single region or country in order to look at recurring problems and possibilities across the European Iron Age. Often these are analogies (such as problems of taphonomic bias) rather than direct linkages, but large-scale issues in European prehistory are also considered, such...Hunter, Fraser
technological innovation, material culture, taphonomic bias, decoration, and Mediterranean links
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Book chapter
“A Crown of Everlasting Glory”: The Afterlife of Maria Clementina Sobieska in Material and Visual Culture
Maria Clementina Sobieska was the last widely recognised Stuart queen, albeit in exile, and mother to the final generation of the Stuart dynasty. Examining the material and visual culture surrounding her funeral and afterlife, this chapter reinstates Clementina in Jacobite and Stuart history. It also considers the papal role in...Vullinghs, Georgia
Jacobites, visual culture, material culture, Royal funerals, Queenship, and Stuarts
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Presentation
Loyal Exchange: the material and visual culture of Jacobite exile, c.1716 - c.1760
‘Exile’ was fundamental to shaping the experience of Jacobitism – loyalty to the Stuart dynasty – during the eighteenth century. This talk considers how the Stuarts and their supporters used material and visual culture to negotiate exile and absence. Expanding on the work of Edward Corp, it explores the physical...Vullinghs, Georgia
exile, network of exchange, Stuarts , Jacobitism, and material culture
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Lecture
Viking Panic? Looking for the 9-12th centuries in Argyll
The story of early medieval Argyll is told through overarching narratives: the arrival of the Scots of Dál Riata; incoming missionaries in the age of saints; and the invasions of the Vikings. A recent reassessment of the National Museums Scotland collections from this period emphasises how material culture tells a... -
Book chapter
'Discussion' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Hatherley, Candy ; Dungworth, David ; Hunter, Fraser ; Mclaren, Dawn
prehistory, northern Scotland, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and Highlands & Islands
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Book chapter
'The Stone Artefacts' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....McLaren, Dawn ; Hunter, Fraser ; McGibbon, Fiona
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and northern Scotland
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Book chapter
'The glass artefacts and glass-working debris from Culduthel: typology, discussion and catalogue' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Hunter, Fraser
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and northern Scotland
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Book chapter
'Analysis of the glass objects' In: Hatherley, Catherine & Murray, Ross 'Culduthel: an Iron Age craftworking centre in North-East Scotland'
The Iron Age settlement at Culduthel is one of the most significant later prehistoric sites identified in mainland Scotland. Archaeological excavation in 2005 revealed a craftworking centre which had specialised in the production of iron, bronze and glass objects between the late 1st Millennium BC and early 1st Millennium AD....Davis, Mary ; Freestone, Ian
prehistory, Highlands & Islands, material culture, Prehistoric archaeology, and northern Scotland
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Journal article
Fit for a Queen: The Material and Visual Culture of Maria Clementina Sobieska, Jacobite Queen in Exile
Tracing its manifestation across three phases in her biography — marriage, separation and funeral — this article considers the image of Maria Clementina Sobieska (1702–35). Examining the objects and portraits which surrounded Clementina’s life and death offers a new historiography for the Jacobite queen in exile. It reinstates her place...Vullinghs, Georgia
queenship, Jacobites, Stuarts, royal image, and material culture
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Journal article
The Cold War in European museums – filling the ‘empty battlefield’
Recent historical research has analysed the Cold War as an ‘imaginary war’, an interpretation that poses specific challenges for displaying the conflict in museums. In contrast to well-established representations of the First and Second World Wars in exhibitions, we find that the nature of the Cold War in Europe and...Alberti, Samuel J M M ; Nehring, Holger
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Journal article
Appropriate and appropriated sites for elephants: a case study of the making of museum objects
Through a case study of the museum career of a mounted specimen of African elephant, the nature of “museum objects” and sites in which they engage in the construction of meaning are examined. The paper tracks a series of representations through a museum and explores how this representative of the...Swinney, Geoffrey N
material culture, natural museology, remediation, translation, meta-representation, and afterlife
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Lecture
Re-framing Mary: audience-focused collecting and display
During the life of the RSE project, and following the acquisition of the Mary Queen of Scots casket, National Museums Scotland re-framed the narrative it tells of Mary in the Chambers Street museum. This talk explores the museum’s role in mediating narratives of Mary’s life and impact, to argue that...Groundwater, Anna
casket, material culture, Mary, Queen of Scots, and museum collecting, interpretation and display
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Lecture
'The Viking-age Reuse of Insular Metalwork From Northern Britain'
The looting of Christian shrines and reliquaries in the Viking Age is so well-documented that it has been reduced to a cartoonish vision of pillaging heathens. A close look at the evidence for such ‘looting’ tells a different story – or rather a number of different stories. A recent reassessment... -
Conference paper (unpublished)
The material culture of long-distance connections: the evidence from Neolithic Orkney
Anderson-Whymark, Hugo
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Lecture
Highland dress and fashionable culture in Georgian Britain
Fashion and textile historian Dr Rosie Waine tells the story of the remarkable transformation of Highland dress from warrior culture to the colourful world of fashion in Georgian Britain. A REMARKABLE TRANSFORMATION As a living tradition, Highland dress is deeply rooted in the history of Scotland. Once associated with the...Waine, Rosie
fashion , Highland dress, material culture, and Georgian Scotland
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Lecture
Public History Roundtable contribution
The Renaissance and Early Modern Research Alliance (REMRA) promotes co-operation and cross-disciplinary research across the various centres and institutes of the University of the Highlands and Islands. The group is convened by Dr Kathrin Zickermann (UHI Centre for History) and consists of c.20 members of staff (including visiting professors and...Groundwater, Anna
Renaissance and Early Modern , Research Alliance, collaboration, and material culture
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Sealing Royal Stewart Power
Groundwater, Anna
Seals, sealing , Renaissance Scotland, House of Stuart, material culture, and Monarchy
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Conference paper (unpublished)
Geology to Jewellery: sourcing and crafting Scottish metals and gems in the nineteenth century
From the late eighteenth century, jewellers in Scotland used precious metals and colourful stone to craft little luxuries that were bought, gifted and worn by men, women and children. This talk will explore how jewellers and lapidaries responded and contributed to developing knowledge about geology and mineralogy through the things...Laurenson, Sarah
material culture, geology , lapidaries, 18th century , agates, Cairngorm mountains, mineralogy, Scotland, jewellery, and quartz
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Abstract
Cable, Link Analyser, Synthesiser: Connecting the Cold War in the Museum
In his book Grammophone, Film, Typewriter, the cultural theorist Friedrich Kittler linked the history of writing and imaging machines to the history of warfare. For him, the computer is fundamentally and essentially a machine that structures the production of knowledge in the Cold War. Kittler’s existentialist analysis, however, is based...Nehring, Holger
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Abstract
What Colour was the Cold War?
In interviews with museum professionals about museology I asked each participant if they associated any colour with the Cold War. I intended to use colour as a lens on curatorial perceptions, as well as preconceptions, of an historical era. By leading with associations, rather than empirical data, all interviewees had...Douthwaite, Jessica
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Book chapter
Analysis of the Fettercairn Jewel and comparative Scottish Renaissance jewellery
Renaissance jewellery pieces often demonstrate highly developed artistic and technological skills and combine precious gemstones, pearls, gold, translucent and opaque enamels to reflect an individual's wealth, social status or political loyalties.1 Although there has been significant research published on Renaissance jewellery from an art historical point of view, the amount...Troalen, Lore
Scottish history, Renaissance,, jewellery history, material culture, and analytical data
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Lecture
Getting away from it all – Marie de Guise’s Town House, Blyth’s Close, Edinburgh
As Principal Curator for Renaissance and Early Modern History, Anna played a major part in acquiring for the museum the four decorative oak roundels which once adorned the rooms of Marie de Guise’s residence in Blyth’s Close, Edinburgh. The roundels reveal much about the power and influence of Marie in...Groundwater, Anna
oak roundels, architecture, Renaissance , material culture, mansion, Marie de Guise, Scotland, Blyth’s Close, Edinburgh, and sculpture
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Lecture
War and diplomacy on Rome’s northern frontier
The Roman army provided the muscle for the most powerful empire in the ancient world. But this empire met its limits. The fearsome legions tried three times to conquer Scotland, and three times they withdrew. This epic tale of war and diplomacy, of advance and retreat, of divide and rule,...Hunter, Fraser
Roman conquest, archaeological finds, Roman Scotland, material culture, and Stirlingshire
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Lecture
Furniture history in Dumfries and Galloway
Stephen Jackson is Senior Curator, Furniture and Woodwork, at National Museums Scotland and the author of Scottish Furniture, 1500-1914. This new book charts the development of furniture making in Scotland and includes several items made in Dumfries and the wider region between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Stephen’s lecture will...Jackson, Stephen
Dumfries and Galloway, Scottish furniture, material culture, and furniture making