By Amara Thornton

This month's post is over on "Ure Routes", where I discuss a 1943 painting of Hadrian's Wall which is now part of the University of Reading's Art Collections. Having found two letters relating to this artwork in the Classics Department archive some months ago, I was prompted to write up the bits of research I'd done, quoting rather liberally from the letters, after seeing a recent tweet of the painting.  
 
Find out more about this work and Faith Ashford, the artist who created it, "Miss Asford's Painting". 

By Amara Thornton

We recently launched a new digital exhibition on "Ure Routes", an online version of our previous "Hidden Women in the Archive: Collectors, Curators and Cataloguers" exhibition.  Essentially, the handlist has been replicated online, with the addition of some fabulous short films, one for each of the ten women represented in the exhibition.
 
Late last year, a number of staff and students in the Classics Department and the Ure Museum were roped into providing voice overs for these films, bringing the artefacts and archives included in the display to life.  It was thrilling for me to hear extracts from the archives read aloud, a compelling reminder of the humans behind museum collections.  I hope you think so to.
 
Explore "Hidden Women Digital" here.

By Amara Thornton

This month we installed a new exhibition at the Ure Museum.  "Egypt in Reading" explores the colonial context of archaeology in Egypt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The exhibition storyline focuses on the excavations conducted under the direction of British archaeologist John Garstang. He also happens to be one of five archaeologists whose lives and social networks I researched for my PhD.  
 
Garstang's work in Egypt wasn't an area I had previously researched much, however – I had focused more on his time in Sudan (1909-14).  But the Ure Museum's collection of Egyptian antiquities is drawn from an earlier period in Garstang's life, when he was in his late 20s and early 30s.  

​The exhibition storyline doesn't just concentrate on Garstang.  My underlying ethos in putting the display together was to emphasise multiple perspectives and (as far as I could) present multiple 'voices', to go beyond profiling a male British director-of-dig. So you will find references to a few of the Egyptian men who worked with Garstang – particularly his chief foreman Saleh Abd El Nebi.  There are also some fantastic business cards once belonging to various Egyptian dragomans – these come from Professor Rachel Mairs' personal collection.  In the digital version of the exhibition you can watch her explaining three of the cards now featured in the exhibition.
 
You'll also find references to a few women in the display. These include artist and University College Reading alumna Henrietta Lawes, who as a volunteer with Flinders and Hilda Petrie had gone to Egypt in 1898; Garstang's wife Marie, who would become a noted (though unofficial) conservator; and Meta Williams, Secretary of the Institute of Archaeology at Liverpool who helped facilitate the acquisition of these Egyptian artefacts in the early 1920s.
 
We could not have put this exhibition together in the way that we did without access to the archives in the Garstang Museum in Liverpool, and the help of its curator Dr Gina Criscenzo-Laycock. While the Ure Museum archive has letters relating to the acquisition of the Liverpool collection in the early 1920s, it does not have material related to the original excavation of the artefacts.  That information is in Liverpool, where John Garstang was based. Gina has been incredibly generous in sharing digital images of Garstang's excavation reports, photograph albums and various ephemera relating to Garstang's exhibitions in London. Chief among these latter items is the visitors book to the 1903 and 1904 exhibitions; for a network-lover like myself, this was an absolute gold mine. 
 
Ure Museum Assistant Curator Jayne Holly and I went to Liverpool last month to find materials we could use for the display. I was looking particularly for any references to individual workmen, so I was thrilled to find among the periodic reports Garstang sent to the small Committees providing the funds for excavation his chief foreman Saleh's signature and seal.  A reproduced image of this is now on display in the Ure Museum.  
 
Two other photographic highlights (reproduced for display) came from Garstang's photograph albums.  The images in question show Garstang's British assistant, an artist called Harold Jones, painting portraits inside the rock-tomb site office at Beni Hasan.  I knew from my PhD research that Jones's paintings were shown during the exhibitions held at the end of the season – but I never expected to see the works-in-progress!  
 
I also wanted to profile a few local (to Reading) links to Egypt.  These include Caversham-born Henrietta Lawes, mentioned already. In the course of the planning of the exhibition it became clear that beyond her bequest of Egyptian antiquities to her alma mater, she also gave a number of books on Egypt. These went into the Library, and thanks to the hard work of several people in University of Reading Library and Special Collections the full list of her book bequest was found. We present one of Henrietta Lawes's books, a copy of the 5th edition Baedeker's guide to Egypt, bearing a plate acknowledging her bequest. 
 
Another important Egypt-Reading link I wanted particularly to highlight was the presence of Egyptian students at University College Reading during the time that John Garstang was working in Egypt.  Over the course of my time at Reading I've been looking through various items in the University History Collection, including reports of Faculty and other administrative records.  These have revealed that there were Egyptian students at the College from at least 1908. But the item on display is a copy of the University College Reading Review from autumn 1915.  This notes three Egyptian alumni of the College sending a supportive address to their former colleagues and classmates, as Egypt moved from a country occupied by Britain to a British Protectorate, and war raged across Europe and the Middle East.   
 
I could say a lot more about this exhibition, which has really been a labour of love and an attempt to integrate the complex and rich history of archaeology into a museum display case, privileging archives and other historic materials as much as ancient artefacts. But I hope you will go and see it yourselves – and/or visit the exhibition website for the full handlist, lots of images, and some exciting extra content!

By Amara Thornton

I've been adding more biographical entries to "Ure Routes" this month. It's part of my mission to ensure that even if individuals whose letters are now held in the Ure Museum aren't currently visible online, you can discover why they are significant on the Museum's research blog. Now you can learn more about three people who are represented in the Ure Museum archive:  "Vivian (Whitfield) Wade-Gery", "Caroline Amy Hutton" and "Reginald Percy Austin".

By Amara Thornton

This past month I've put three linked posts on Ure Routes relating to my continuing research in the documents in filing cabinets that comprise the Museum archives.  
 
The first post was an initial description of the main contents of the Museum archive, which included a list of archaeologists (of various nationalities) who are represented among the files.  You can read "Ure Museum Archives: An Initial Description" here. 
 
The second post contextualises one part of the archive – the notebooks and correspondence relating to excavations at Rhitsona, Greece in 1907-8.  In date-terms, this material is among the earliest in the Museum archive. You can read "From the Archive: The Road to Mykalessos" here.
 
The third post is a biographical one, providing information about one of the people who worked on site at Rhitsona during the 1907/08 excavation.  Grace Holding was a Classics Mistress at a well-known girls' school in London, but also among one of the British women involved in archaeology in Greece.  Letters from her during this period are now held in the Ure Museum archive.  
 
Although the work that Grace Holding did at Rhitsona was published, she wouldn't be considered 'notable' enough to merit inclusion on Wikipedia (an ongoing problem that extends to much more 'notable' women). So I decided to put what I was able to find together to make a Wikipedia-like biography for her on Ure Routes.  Luckily, with the help of the Ure's Assistant Curator Jayne Holly, and the extent issues of the North London Collegiate School magazine, I was able to find out a fair amount! You can read "Grace Ernestine Holding (c. 1873-1943)" here.

By Amara Thornton
​
Directing you once more this month to Ure Routes, where you can find out more about our recently launched project "Annie's Box"!  This exciting interactive is now sitting at the Ure Museum, waiting for visitors!  Find out more about "Annie's Box" here. 

By Amara Thornton​

I put out a request on Twitter this morning with a Halloween-y twist.  Use the hashtag #excavationgothic to add to the bibliography (below) of works featuring excavation (or antiquities) in a gothic setting!
​
Thank you to all the stellar folks who have already responded! The results, so far, are as follows (chronological, by date of publication).

2nd C: Pliny the Younger, "To Sura" 

1820s
1827: Jane (Webb) Loudon, The Mummy! Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century
 
1860s
1862: Anon, "The Mummy's Soul"
1867: Louisa May Alcott, "Lost in a Pyramid"
1868: Jane Austin, "After Three Thousand Years"
 
1880s
1882: Theophile Gautier, "The Mummy's Foot"
1885: Thomas Hardy, "A Tryst in an Ancient Earthwork"
1887: Mary Elizabeth Braddon "From a Doctor's Diary"
1889: Eva Henry, "Curse of Vasartas"
 
1890s
1890: Thomas Hardy, "Barbara at the House of Grebe"
1892: Arthur Conan Doyle, "Lot No 249"
1892: Grant Allen, "Pallinghurst Barrow"
1895: Arthur Machen, "The Novel of the Black Seal"
1898: Herbert Crotzer, "The Block of Bronze" 
1898: Arthur Conan Doyle, "Burger's Secret"
1898: E & H Heron (Hesketh Pritchard and Kate Pritchard), "The Story of Baelbrow"

1900s
1904: Charlotte Bryson Taylor, "In the Dwellings of the Wilderness"
1904: Montague Rhodes James, "Oh Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad"
1908: Algernon Blackwood, "The Nemesis of Fire"

1910s
1910: Arthur Conan Doyle, "Through the Veil"; "The Terror of Blue John Gap"
1911: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, "The Ballad of the White Horse"
1913: Anon, "The Aldbrickham Skeleton"
1919: Francis Brett Young, "Song of the Dark Ages"
 
1920s
1921: Algernon Blackwood, "The Tarn of Sacrifice"
1921: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "The Nameless City"
1924: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs"
1924: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "Under the Pyramids"
1924/5: Gilbert Keith Chesterton, "The Curse of the Golden Cross"
1925: Howard Christopher Bailey, "The Long Barrow"
1925: Montague Rhodes James, "A Warning to the Curious"
1928: Edward Frederic Benson "The Temple"
1929: Eleanor Scott, "The Cure"
1929: Eleanor Scott, "Celui-la"

1930s
1931: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "At the Mountains of Madness"
1933: Robert E. Howard, The Cairn on the Headland" 
1934: Elliott O'Donnell, "The Mummy Worshippers"
1934/35: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, "Shadow Out of Time"
1935: Clark Ashton Smith, "The Last Hieroglyph"
1935: Joseph O'Neill, "Land Under England"
1938: Thomas P. Kelley, "I Found Cleopatra"
1938: Edgar Hoffman Price, "The Woman in the Case"
1938: Dorothy Kathleen Broster, "The Pavement"
 
1940s
1945: Alfred Leslie Rowse, "The Stone that Liked Company"
1949: Nigel Kneale, "Minuke"
 
1950s
1951: Sarban (John William Wall), "Ringstones"
1951: Sarban (John William Wall), "Capra"
1951: Margery Lawrence, The Rent in the Veil
1952: Rose Macaulay, "Whitewash"
 
1970s
1971: Ramsey Campbell, "The End of a Summer's Day"
1971: Daphne Du Maurier, "Not After Midnight"
1975: Rosemary Timperley, "The Bandaged Man"

1980s
1989: Anne Rice, The Mummy, or Ramses the Damned
 
1990s
1996: Joyce Carol Oates, "The Temple"
1996: Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere
 
2010s
2010: Rosalie M. Parker, "The Old Knowledge"
2013: Adam Roberts, "Tollund"
2013: Roger Luckhurst, "The Thing of Wrath"
2014: Robert Sharp, "The Good Shabti" 
2014: Lesley Glaister, Little Egypt

By Amara Thornton

This month's blog is on Ure Routes, as last week we installed a new exhibition at the Ure Museum, "Allen Seaby's Archaeology for Children".  The genesis of the display goes back to my first few months at Reading. I met Laura Carnelos, who was then cataloguing collections in the Typography Department. She drew my attention to some material she was working on that was relevant to archaeological publishing. One of them is the archive of artist Allen Seaby.*  
 
Seaby was a Professor of Fine Art at Reading in the early 20th Century, but he also wrote books on archaeology for children.  Laura had in the course of cataloguing come across an unpublished manuscript, "Leon of Massalia", a story set in ancient Greece.  
 
Of course, this intrigued me because of the books for children I wrote about in Archaeologists in Print.  It led me to look more into Seaby's works, and the ways in which he presented archaeology and archaeological discoveries for younger readers.  A few months later, we were installing the exhibition! 

 It took on a new form at rather the last minute, with a unexpected and very generous loan of lots of relevant sketches and preliminary drawings from Allen Seaby's grandson, the artist Robert Gillmor, to whom we are extremely grateful. 
 
With installation imminent, Ure Museum curator Professor Amy Smith and I sat down and talked through Seaby's life, and the materials we had gathered on loan from Robert Gillmor, the Typography Department and the Children's Collection (part of Special Collections). The concept ended up falling rather naturally into chronological phases when mapped against Seaby's life; these became "Chapters", mimicking a book, as I drafted the handlist.  

​You can read more about Seaby at "Allen Seaby and Archaeology" and by visiting the exhibition at the Ure Museum, on until 21 February! Use the hashtag #SeabysArchaeology to tell us what you think of the display.
 
*The other is the Isotype collection.

By Amara Thornton

This month's post is a guest post for Girton College's "Glimpses of Girton" blog.  It concerns one of the College's former students (and later Director of Studies in Archaeology, Anthropology and Classics) Norah Jolliffe.  I came across her in relation to a now defunct "Romano-British Museum" at the University of Reading – Jolliffe had been its curator between 1927 and 1934, while she was Lecturer in Classics at the University.  Luckily her papers are preserved at Girton College, and I visited earlier this year to have a look.
 
I think Jolliffe is a fascinating woman and I look forward to finding out more about her.  But you can read what I know so far in "Norah Jolliffe: Curator, Excavator, Teacher".
 
And for more on the "Romano-British Museum", check out "On Museum Beginnings" and "A Wartime Interdisciplinary Vision" on my Reading blog, Ure Routes!

By Amara Thornton

This month's post is over on "Beckett, Books and Biscuits", the blog for Special Collections at the University of Reading.  I've been spending some time diving into a wonderful archive held there, the papers of Adam & Charles Black, publishers.  A. & C. Black (for short) published both fiction and non-fiction, but I'm particularly interested in their non-fiction publishing efforts.  Among this group can be counted a number of popular archaeology books written by Rev. James Baikie, and illustrated by his wife Constance Newman (Turner-Smith) Baikie.  
 
I've written about one of Baikie's books – Wonder Tales of the Ancient World – here already.  But this new research has helped contextualise both Baikies' work significantly.  Although he wasn't an archaeologist, as I noted in Archaeologists in Print James Baikie was a prolific author of popular archaeology books – a pre-WW2 Leonard Cottrell – or, to use a more contemporary example, Tony Robinson.   Constance Baikie, an unsung illustrator today, produced in my opinion brilliant work complementing and visually enhancing her husband's text.  This took not just skill, but genius.  I'm happy to say that A. & C. Black recognised her impact, crediting and paying her accordingly.
 
There's a lot more to the A. & C. Black collection than just information on James and Constance Baikie. It's full of authors and illustrators whose work is today almost totally unknown, but there are also more famous names, as you'll see.  The Indexes to the "Letters Out" books – my main source for the post – are fascinating.  I found myself wondering about the lives of those listed.  Hopefully, more of them will be revealed.
 
You can read "Recovering Publishing Histories: The Adam and Charles Black Letterbooks" here.