REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PITT RIVERS MUSEUM, 1984-1985

The Committee met three times during the year, once in each term. The main items for discussion were connected with the opening of the new museum building on the Banbury Road site.

Dr Schuyler Jones, University Lecturer and assistant Curator in the Department was appointed to succeed Mr B.A.L. Cranstone as Curator from 1 October 1985. Mr M.D. McLeod accepted reco-optation to the Committee.

THE MUSEUM
The new museum.
Special assistance to enable the new museum building to be opened by 30 September 1985, requested from the General Board in June 1984, was granted in December of that year. It was by then too late to hope to open the building by 30 September 1985, the date of the Curator’s retirement. As a target date the end of 1985 was therefore set, and most of the museum’s resources were directed to that end during the remainder of the year.
 
The problems with control of humidity and light levels, mentioned in the Report for the previous year, were resolved with the help of grants from the Museums and Galleries Commission and the Area Museum Service for South Eastern England. This work, and certain other minor requirements, were completed by the end of April 1985, and it was possible for the first time to move specimens into the musical-instrument section of the building. Much preliminary work such as making fittings, painting, selecting and conserving items for display having already been done, preparation of the exhibitions could proceed quickly.
 
The help granted by the General Board included the temporary services of two technicians, Mr John Simmons and Mr Andre Bovington were appointed in February and at once began making, installing and painting standard case fittings. When these had been largely completed Mr Simmons was allotted to help with the archaeology and Mr Bovington with the musical instrument exhibitions, working with curatorial and established display staff. To compensate for the continued ill-health of Mr Munsch (an established technician), who could undertake only part-time light work, the Board authorized the part-time employment of further additional help and Mrs Ruth Barnes was appointed to work with Dr La Rue on selection, photography, labelling and research for the musical displays. Miss Lorraine Jones also gave valuable help as a volunteer.
 
Plans for the musical instrument exhibition include a sophisticated radio system which can be used to provide either a broadcast commentary for parties or separate, and simultaneous, commentaries for each section using head-sets. In addition a central booth with audio-visual equipment will cater for more serious students. The costs have largely been covered by a generous grant from the Rhodes Trust.
 
At the end of the year certain requirements were still outstanding, such as the provision of an attendant’s desk and sales point, screening of the public entrance, and completion of a public rest room, but these did not seriously impede work on the exhibitions. The full cooperation of the Acting Surveyor and his staff is gratefully acknowledged.
 In October the Assistant Safety Officer inspected the workshop in the new building and reported that the design of the room caused noise levels when machinery was in operation to be unacceptable under the Health and Safety regulations. There also seemed to be no way of installing fixed dust-extraction trunking, since the floor is of concrete and there is no ceiling. The Safety Officer agreed that the workshop could be used temporarily if the Museum provided appropriate ear-muffs and mobile dust-extraction plant. This was done, and the technicians agreed to use the workshop under these conditions.

The old museum.
The Centenary Exhibition was replaced in January by ‘Images of China, 1908-12’, an exhibition of photographs supplemented by selected specimens. This, the first exhibition to be based mainly on the archive photograph collection was mounted by Mrs Edwards (Archivist and Balfour Librarian) and Ms Cheetham (Museum Assistant, Documention) with some technical help; it therefore had little effect on work in the new building. Members of the Committee and Friends were invited to a preview. Exhibition and storage work at the old museum and the Old Power House store continued when possible, but had to take second place to the demands of work in the new building, and as always, many specimens were taken out for teaching purposes.
 
With the voluntary help of Miss Helen Bond, a visitor survey was undertaken on one or two afternoons a week during May, June and July. Though the sample was too small to support firm conclusions and organized school parties were excluded, some interesting views emerged. It was considered satisfactory that one third of visitors were students, and of those 40% were members of the University.

General Museum Matters.
The Committee became concerned about the allocation of numbers 62 and 64 Banbury Road, in view of certain policy statements concerning the future of the Department of Surveying and Geodesy (occupying number 62) and the fact that number 62 would become vacant at the end of 1985. Dr Jones prepared a paper for the Committee concerning accommodation in these buildings and the uses to which they could be put. The Committee forwarded this to the Buildings Committee, to be followed by another giving fuller details of requirements and of space which might then be vacated on the South Parks Road site.
 
The efforts of the conservation section, which consists of Miss J.S. Walker helped by Mrs Birgitte Speake (who holds a part-time unestablished post), were concentrated mainly on preparing musical instruments for exhibition. A good deal of time had to be spent monitoring environmental conditions in the old and new buildings. Once again, no long-term conservation programme was possible. No progress can be reported on the fumigation chamber. It is hoped that the next Curator will be able to bring this protracted fiasco to a satisfactory conclusion.
 
Miss Walker attended the I.I.C. 10th International Congress in Paris on adhesives and consolidants and a summer school at the Institute of Archaeology in London on moulding and casting. Mrs Speake addressed the Museum Ethnographers’ Group in Edinburgh on conservation aspects of the display of costume and textiles.
 
Members of the University of London Institute of Archaeology summer school spent a day at the museum visiting the old and new buildings and the conservation laboratory and hearing two talks on material culture by members of the academic staff. Our thanks are again due to the ladies from N.A.D.F.A.S. who have given valuable voluntary help to the conservation section.
 
Accessioning of acquisitions was brought up to date, and some temporary typing help enabled the backlog of index cards to be cleared. Well over a hundred written enquiries were dealt with, and more than fifty of these resulted in visits by researchers. In preparation for the eventual conputerization of museum records meetings were held with the University Computing Service and representatives of the Ashmolean Museum, in the hope that the system being devised for the latter would be suitable for use by the other University museums. A location index of specimens was initiated and has already proved useful.
 
In September five African personal ornaments were lent to the African-American Institute in New York. It was decided that thereafter no further overseas loans would be sanctioned until the new museum building was ready for opening because of the large amount of departmental time taken up by such loans. Nine items from a Bronze Age hoard were lent to the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh.
 
A collection of tracings of South African rock art was transferred to the University of Witwatersrand. They were in poor condition and had been published, and it was considered that their main value was for comparison in situ with the originals.
 
The efforts of Mr Narracott, the photographer, were mainly concentrated on work connected with the new exhibition, including ‘Images of China’, for which he produced over a hundred items. The copying of archive photographs was continued. There were 94 outside orders and he made 2,833 prints and 349 slides. Much of his work is needed for record purposes or in connection with the teaching requirements of the academic staff.
 
A party from the Association of American Museums, for whom a talk and tour of the museum was arranged were welcome visitors.
 
The public attendance figure was 36,100, of whom 5,500 were in organized school parties.

Services for Schools.
The guiding service initiated last year continued to develop. By the end of the year three trails were available and three more were in preparation. Activities for children of Friends were arranged during the Christmas period. Thanks are due to Mrs Annelie Rookwood, Mrs Olive Duncan, Mrs Sally Owen, Mrs Jean Flemming, Mrs Joan Shaw and Mrs Joan Ritchie.
 
The long-established system of admitting schools and other organized parties by appointment in the mornings continued.

Fund Raising
It was reported last year that the University had engaged a fund-raising firm to investigate the feasibility of an appeal on behalf of the four University Museums. The firm’s representative had visited the museum and had advised that approaches to potential donors should not be made at that stage and that efforts should continue to be concentrated on public relations and increasing public awareness of the Museum
 
The firm reported that the time was not appropriate for such an appeal, and this view was accepted by Council. Early in 1985 the Museum therefore began independent efforts, but by then valuable time had been lost. The warm and positive support of Mr Christopher Ball, Chairman of the Appeals and Income Generation Committee, with whom regular meetings were held, is gratefully recorded. Three objectives were agreed upon. In order of priority these were: first, raising funds for the satisfactory control of environmental conditions in the new building (humidity levels in the part not air-conditioned, and control of light levels) and for the provision of audio-visual equipment for the musical instrument exhibition; secondly, funds to continue Dr la Rue’s employment for up to four years from 1986, to initiate and organize musical activities and write a catalogue; and thirdly, a long-term aim, to endow an established post for a University Lecturer and Assistant Curator in Ethnomusicology. It was agreed that efforts should be concentrate on the first two of these objectives, the cost of which would be about £100,000.
 
By the end of the year under review over £54,000 had been secured. The first objective had been achieved except for a small sum and good progress had been made towards the second. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for generous grants: the Museums and Galleries Commission (received in the previous year), the Area Museum Service, the Rhodes Trust, the Hulme University Fund and the Pilgrim Trust. Public contributions by means of the collecting box in the Museum provided a useful supplement, but at this stage it was not considered opportune to issue a general appeal.
 
The demands of the new exhibitions made it impossible to arrange a programme of concerts and events comparable to that of the previous year. Dr La Rue organized a bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy conference which included a workshop session open to the public and two concerts, the latter held at the Oxford Arts Centre. A day course was arranged for the Department of Education, University of Reading, on traditional musical instruments and instrument making. For the third successive year Dr La Rue participated in the Music Village organized by the Commonwealth Institute in London (this year the theme was the Indian Ocean) by running workshops and giving lectures in which musicians participated. These annual events have provided a very valuable testing ground for the Museum’s plans to involve both children and adults in activities based on the collections.
 
A visit to the Museum by the Musical Box Society of Great Britain created considerable interest in that part of the collections, and Mr J. Colley and Mr Allan Wyatt of the Society gave practical help for which we are most grateful.

The Friends.
By the end of the year membership exceeded a hundred. There was a varied range of activities. Visits were made to the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, to see the General Pitt Rivers galleries; to the new building in Banbury Road; and to the Museum of Mankind in London, to see the exhibition ‘The Hidden Peoples of the Amazon’ in preparation and a film on New Guinea. Dr Tayler and Dr Jones gave lectures on aspects of their field work in the Amazon basin and in Afghanistan, Lady Dale on the Arkell collection of beads, and Dr Richard Bradley on General Pitt Rivers. The latter was followed by a Christmas party in the Museum. Parties were also held after the preview of ‘Images of China’ exhibition and the A.G.M., the latter in Rhodes House.
 
The Friends presented to the Museum the costume of a Zoroastrian woman from Iran and paid for the design of two cards for sale on the bookstall.
 
Professor Barry Cunliffe kindly consented to become president.

The Balfour Library
Demands on the library, particularly on the archive collections, again increased at all levels. Unfortunately financial constraints, aggravated by the fall in the value of sterling, have enforced reductions in purchases of periodicals in particular. Titles discounted were all readily available elsewhere in Oxford, thus freeing funds for the maintenance of holdings unique in Oxford and for adding new titles particularly relevant to the work of the Department and the Museum. It is possible that further cuts will have to be made.
 
The reclassification of the book stock to Bliss Bibliographic Classification, second edition, which had been delayed for some time, began to progress rapidly with the publication of the schedules for Class K (Society). Major conceptual and structural problems have been resolved and work on the difficult sub-class of Myth, Folklore, Religion and Magic has been completed.
 
The following were accessioned during the year: 285 books, 98 pamphlets, 436 periodical parts. Five journal subscriptions were cancelled; three new subscriptions were placed, and a further three are being received by exchange, A total of 145 new readers was registered, and 2,363 loans were recorded.
 
The library gratefully acknowledges a grant of £180 from the Inter-faculty Committee for Latin American Studies for the purchase of books in that field. The Library was also grateful to receive gifts from the following: Ashmolean Museum, Dr A.J. Colson, Mrs Ettlinger, Mrs J. Fuller-Genthe, Mrs M. Ganguli, Dr S. Jones, Mrs Kuhn, Dr S Krech III, Museum of the History of Science, Oriental Institute, Dr J. Pina-Cabral, Mr J. Simmons, Ms L. Williamson.

Demand on both the manuscript and the photographic archive collections grows annually and has increased about six-fold over the last seven or eight years. Consequently they consume an ever-increasing amount of staff time, to the point when it has become more difficult to maintain routine curatorial functions on the collections. However, the storage project (reported last year) is now completed and is most successful. Mrs Edwards has lectured on the planning and implementation of the project to a number of interested bodies.
 
A total of 54 visiting Scholars consulted the archive collections during the year, including visitors from Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A., Canada, Peoples Republic of China, Kenya, Vanuatu and Malaysia.
 
There were some notable acccessions to the archives, of which two especially deserve mention: Mrs U.C. Betts’s gift of her 2.500 photographs of the Naga tribes (mostly Zemi) and the Apa Tani of Assam catalogued and documented by the donor with a grant from the Hulme Fund; and the Harvey Collection of about 1,200 photographs from Burma which was placed on permanent deposit by the Department of Western Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library. The following are also thanked for gifts to the Archive collections: Mrs I.S. Barclay, Mr A Brown, Mr A.J. Dennan, Mrs Dixon, Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Leicestershire Museums and Art Galleries, Museum of the History of Science.
 
Once again we thank Mr J.S. Bach for his invaluable work on Miss Blackwood’s papers, the cataloguing of which is almost completed, and Miss R. Van Burskirk for cataloguing R.S.Rattay’s Ashanti photographs.

Publications
Sales and exchanges of Occasional Papers and Monographs amounted to 387; of other publications to 327; of postcards to 9,165, and of souvenirs to 4,077. Three new postcard subjects were added during the year.

Staff
The General Board agreed that steps to fill the post of University Lecturer in Ethnology and Assistant Curator, vacant in consequence of Dr. Jones’s appointment as Curator, could be taken immediately. By the end of the year short-listed candidates had been interviewed but no appointment had been announced.
 
The Assistant Curator, Mr Inskeep and Dr Tayler, agreed to accept a limited amount of teaching as part of their duties (both had been teaching voluntarily). Their posts were therefore redesignated University Lecturer, in Prehistoric Archaeology and Ethnology respectively, and Assistant Curator. In consequence they became entitled.
 
Mrs B.T.E. Claridge (Curator’s secretary) resigned and was replaced Mrs L.S. Coleman. Mr T.J. Molan, Head Attendant, and Mr J. Hewlett, who for ten years had been attendant and the whole supporting staff at the Quaternary Research Centre, both retired. They were replaced by Mr C.F. Tarplett and Mr C.E.W. East respectively.
 
Mr B.A.L. Cranstone (Curator) escorted a loan to the African-American Institute in New York, after which he attended a conference of the Pacific Arts Association and visited museums and exhibitions, including an important loan exhibition of Maori material from New Zealand museums in the Metropolitan Museum.
 
Mrs E.J.M. Edwards (Archivist and Balfour Librarian) attended the third Symposium of the European Society for the History of Photography in Bradford and gave a paper on ‘Photography and Anthropology in the 19th century’ (in press).
 
Mr R.R. Inskeep (University Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology and Assistant Curator) continued to serve on the Editorial Board of World Archaeology. The greater part of his time was taken up by preparing the archaeological exhibition in the new building.
 
Dr Schuyler-Jones (University Lecturer in Ethnology and Assistant Curator) lectured at the Universities of Aarhus and Heidelberg.
 
Dr H.T.A.M. La Rue (temporary Assistant Curator for Ethnomusicology) continued as Editor of the CIMCIM Newsletter and lectured on musical instruments at th Museum of Mankind. She attended the conference CIMCIM (the musical section of ICOM) in Washington and New York as a member of the Classification Working Group and translator of the French text into English.
 
Dr D.A. Roe (University Lecturer in Prehistoric Archaeology) was awarded the Henry Stopes Memorial Medal of the Geologists’ Association of London, and attended a meeting in Louvain to organize an EEC-sponsored Special Diploma in Early Man Studies, a co-operative project involving nine European universities. He served on the Editorial Boards of World Archaeology and Quarterly Review of Archaeology and on the Advisory Panel of L’Anthropologie, and was a member of the Advisory Committee for Archaeology and Numismatics of the National Museum of Wales and of the organizing committee for the 1986 World Archaeological Congress visit to Oxford.
 
Mr D.B. Tayler (University Lecturer in Ethnology and Assistant Curator) assisted with the preparation of an exhibition at the Museum of Mankind, ‘Hidden Peoples of the Amazon’, which included much material collected by him with Mr B. Moser, and gave a lecture there in connection with it.
 
The following publications by members of the staff appeared during the year:
Jones, Schuyler. 1984. ‘On the function of KK 32: an ethnographic specimen from Nuristan in the Kabul Museum’, Folk, 26
La Rue, H.T.A.M. 1985. ‘Musical Instruments in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford’, International Council for Traditional Music (U.K. Chapter), Bulletin no 11.
Roe, D.A. 1984. ‘Advancing the study of early man in East Africa’, Quarterly Review of     Archaeology, 5, no 3.
------- 1985. ‘Archaeology in York’, Quarterly Review of Archaeology, 6, no 1.
------- (ed.). 1985. Studying stones (World Archaeology, 17, no 1), with editor’s instructions.
Dr Roe also prepared the text of M.D. Leakey, Disclosing the Past: an Autobiography (1984).
Tayler, D.B. 1985 (with E. Carmichael, S. Hugh-Jones and B. Moser). The Hidden Peoples of the Amazon (British Museum Publications).

Teaching
This was the first year in which the new M.St. in Anthropological Archaeology was offered. There were three candidates, all of whom were successful. The new degree seems to fill a gap in University provision in the United Kingdom.

Student numbers

...
 In addition to the three M.St. candidates, four D.Phil. Candidates were successful.

The Baden-Powell Quaternary Research Centre
There were 139 visitors during the year. These included two long-term visitors, Dr John Campbell from James Cook University, Queensland, and Dr Jan M. Burdukiewicz from Wroclaw University; and, for a few days, Professor Glynn Issac from Harvard. A day symposium on the Palaeolithic of Britain and north-west Europe was organized, the papers presented at which are being prepared for publication. Several visitors gave talks about their work. Research students again organized very successful ‘day schools’ on flint implements for the Department of External Studies.

A piece of ancillary equipment was provided for the RML Microprocessor with a contribution from Departmental funds. The photographic dark-room was completed, and new telephones wee installed. Lack of staff at support level remains a problem.

Accessions
The most notable acquisition of the year was the very large amulet collection transferred by the Welcome Trustees. The greater part was a gift, but for legal reasons one section was deposited on loan.

Donations
Mr A.G.M. Armstrong: two small leather puppets from Turkey. Ashmolean Museum: two wood memorial figures from the Kalash Kafir of Chitral, transferred with the consent of Mr and Mrs M. Moynihan. Also two iron leg rings from West Africa and three baskets from the Sudan. Mr A. Bakewell: a stringed musical instrument from Ethiopia. Mr H.P. Barnes: a robe from Mazar-i-Sherif, Afghanistan. Capt. J. Bongaerts: four silver ex votos from Dienst, Belgium. Mr J.R. Crabbe: two ceremonial spears from Uganda. Mrs J. Crawford: a bronze axe blade from Bihar, India. Mrs P. Empson: a small ethnographical collection from western Polynesia. Mr M. Foote: four paintings of North American Indians. Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum: a Zoroastrian woman’s costume from Iran (purchased from Mrs Shahin Bekhradnia). Prof. Kazano Fukushima: a pellet bell on a cord (an amulet) from Japan. Mr M.J. Hayward: a small ethnographical collection from Perlis, Malaysia. Dr J. Hendry: three fish kites, used to mark the birth of a son, from Japan. Dr M.J. Hitchcock: a wind musical instrument from Bima Regency, Indonesia, and a drill from Thailand. Mrs M. Kühn: two bundles of dried flowers, for sprinkling cattle with holy water, from Poland. Mr C.A. Love: a piano accordion, one of the first to be imported into this country. Mr D. Marsh: a collection of relics, apparently of a massacre, from a site in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. Mr W.J. Mazower: an incised bamboo document case from the Toraja of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Mr and Mrs M. Moynihan: a head-dress from the Kalash Kafir of Chitral, N.W.F.P. Pakistan. Mrs L. Rogers: three rice-straw leggings from the Angami Nagas of Assam. Mrs M. Schrimff: four items of spinning and weaving apparatus from Columbia and a camel trapping from Iraq. Mrs E.M. Scratton: a large Middle Stone Age flint core from South Africa. Mrs I. Sillitoe: a sheet of tracing paper with the pricked outline of a Wayang Kulit puppet, from Java. Dr D.C. Starzecka: two packs of playing cards, with Hawaiian and Papua New Guinea motifs. Mr C.F. Tarplett: a pottery repairer’s pump drill from the English Midlands, and a harmonica. Mr K. Thompson: two musical rasps from Galicia, Spain. Mrs F.M. Underhill: ten Paleoliths from Baker’s Farm, near Maidenhead.

Purchases
Miss A. Betts: an archaeological collection from Ibn el-Ghazzi, Jordan. Mrs S. Carter: two textiles from Guatemala. Ms A.P. Chancellor: a mask from the Mende of Sierra Leone. Mrs M.D. Fyfe: a berimbau (musical instrument) from Bahia, Brazil. Sanjally Jobarteh: a 21-stringed lute from the Mandinka of Gambia. Mr J.E. Kirby: two bronze-bowled smoking pipes from the Upper Volta, West Africa. Mrs J. Loveday: a silk ikat robe from Afghanistan. Lutaya Expedition (per Mr B.E. Harell-Bond): a small ethnographical collection from the West Nile Province, Uganda. Mrs D. Rawlings: a woman’s bead apron, probably from Guyana. St Philip and St James School (per Mrs A. Gladstone) : two pieces of jewellery and two dresses from Ethiopia. Peter R. Jones & Anne Vincent: two ethnographical collections, from the Akie and from the Hadza of Tanzania. Mrs J. Whitehouse: five bracelets of black coral from Indonesia (probably from Java).