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Journal article
Whose Amber? Changing notions of Amber’s geographical origin
This essay explores the issue of cultural identity and cultural identification with respect to one material: amber. Prior to the discovery of the new world and for quite some time afterwards, the primary source of amber in fifteenth-, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe was Prussia. Few Europeans, however, really understood much...King, Rachel
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Journal article
Pacific collections in Scottish museums: unlocking their knowledge and potential
Eve Haddow and Chantal Knowles share the results of a major review of Pacific collections held by museums across the countryHaddow, Eve
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Book chapter
Collecting nature within nature – animal inclusings in Amber in Early Modern Collections, or “Miniture marvels of nature”
When the French diplomat Charles Ogier saw frogs and lizards embedded in amber for sale during his visit to Danzig in November 1635 he called them “miniature miracles of nature.” With rare exceptions, few of these objects—copiously documented in inventories of the time—have actually survived. Instead, we must depend on...King, Rachel
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Journal article
‘Where is the damned collection?’ Charles Davies Sherborn’s listing of named natural science collections and its successors. In: Michel E. (Ed) Anchoring Biodiversity Information: from Sherborn to the 21st century and beyond
C. D. Sherborn published in 1940, under the imprint of Cambridge University Press but at his own expense, Where is the – Collection? This idiosyncratic listing of named natural science collections, and their fates, was useful, but incomplete, and uneven in its accuracy. It is argued that those defects were...Taylor, Michael A
museum, biology, Charles Davies Sherborn, taxonomy, collections, and geology
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Journal article
How art treasures reveal the story of the Celts
A major exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland is seeking to unravel the complex story of the different groups who have been given the name Celts, through the extraordinary art objects they made and used.Hunter, Fraser ; Goldberg, D Martin
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Journal article
Making space for models: (re)representing engineering in Scotland’s national museum, 1854–present
The model-making practices and the role of engineering models on display within a British (and since 1999 Scottish) Government-funded, ‘national’, museum are examined. The changing curatorial perceptions of models and their role over the 160-year history of the Museum are analysed, as are the spaces in which, and the processes...Staubermann, Klaus ; Swinney, Geoffrey N
workshop practice, exhibition, curation, translation of scale, public engagement, and model-making
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Book chapter
Leedsichthys problematicus: Arthur Smith Woodward's ‘most embarrassing enigma’
The link between the renowned palaeoichthyologist Arthur Smith Woodward and the similarly lauded marine reptile collector Alfred Nicholson Leeds may seem an unlikely one, but they formed a close family friendship during their professional acquaintance. Amongst the many fish specimens described by Smith Woodward from Leeds’ Oxford Clay collection, the...Liston, Jeff
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Book
Ancient lives: object, people and place in Early Scotland. Essays for David V Clarke on his 70th birthday
Ancient Lives provides new perspectives on object, people and place in early Scotland and beyond. The 19 papers cover topics ranging from the Neolithic to the Medieval period, and from modern museum practice to ancient craft skills. The material culture of ancient lives is centre stage – how it was... -
Book chapter
‘Thanks to you the best has been made of a bad job’: Vere Gordon Childe and the Bronze Age cairn at Ri Cruin, Kilmartin, Argyll & Bute
Ri Cruin is one of the series of Early Bronze Age cairns that make up the well-known linear cemetery in Kilmartin Glen, Argyll. The aim of this short paper is to make more fully accessible and account of the work undertaken by Gordon Childe in the summer of 1936 when...Cowie, Trevor
Kilmartin Glen, cairn, Vere Gordon Childe, Bronze Age, Argyll, and Ri Cruin
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Book chapter
Scottish Neolithic pottery in 2016: the big picture and some details of the narrative
This contribution summarises our present state of knowledge about Scottish Neolithic pottery, emphasising its dual origins in the Continental Middle Neolithic ceramic traditions of Brittany and the northernmost part of France, and tracing the subsequent expansion in its use within Scotland and some of the complexities of its developmental trajectories....Sheridan, J A
Scotland, ceramic traditions, Grooved Ware, pottery terminology, Castellic, Carinated Bowl, Impressed Wares, Neolithic, and pottery
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Book chapter
The colour purple: lithomarge artefacts in northern Britain
This paper revisits an artefact type, lithomarge beads, last studied 40 years ago by Stevenson and Collins (1976). The rare purple colour produced by the naturally occurring mixture of haematite and kaolinite is the key characteristic and made this material desirable. Lithomarge beads are widely distributed across Northern Britain, but...Goldberg, D Martin
colour, lithomarge, purple, Iron Age, jewellery, Early Medieval, and Roman
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Book chapter
Mary Boyle (1881-1974): the Abbé Breuil’s faithful fellow-worker
This paper looks at the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Boyle, a Scotswoman and poet who by chance found her way into archaeology, firstly through meeting and working with Miles Burkitt and then, most importantly, by her encounter in 1920 with the Abbé Henri Breuil, the famous French prehistorian,...Saville, Alan
Henri Breuil, history of archaeology, Miles Burkitt, Scottish poetry, prehistoric art, and Mary Boyle
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Book chapter
‘Coal money’ from Portpatrick (south-west Scotland): reconstructing an Early Medieval craft centre from antiquarian finds
Late 19th and 20th-century finds of debris from shale bangle manufacture at Portpatrick in south-west Scotland occasioned considerable interest at the time. The early discoveries were found in grave-digging, giving rise to folk traditions of the material as ‘coal money’ placed with the departed, but these were soon dismissed by...Hunter, Fraser
bangles, antiquarian study, Early Medieval, Irish connections, Oil shale, and craft processes
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Book chapter
Gleaming eyes and the elaboration of Anglo-Saxon sculpture
This paper presents the results of the analysis of an Anglo-Saxon cross-shaft fragment from Aberlady, East Lothian that confirm the long-suspected belief that the drilled eye sockets found among Northumbrian and Mercian sculpture originally contained separate eye insets. A tin lining was positively identified in one of the drilled eye...Blackwell, Alice
polychromy, colour, iconography, Early Medieval, sculpture, Anglo-Saxon, and Insular
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