Committee for the Pitt Rivers Museum as of 1 October 1995
The Vice-Chancellor (Dr Peter North)
The Senior Proctor (Dr J.A. Black)
The Junior Proctor (Dr W.D. MacMillan)
The Assessor (Dr P.A.W. Bulloch)
Mr John Flemming (Chairman)
Dr Jim Bennett
Professor Barry Cunliffe
Ms Joanna Innes
Dr Schuyler Jones
Dr Tom Kemp
Dr Jessica Rawson
Dr Peter Rivière
Dr Steve Simpson
Dr Donald Tayler
Professor Christopher White
The Pitt Rivers Museum
The Committee for the Pitt Rivers Museum, having received the following annual report from the Director, presented it as its report to Congregation.
Introduction
It has been a difficult year for the Museum in many ways, with a number of upheavals and changes to accommodate. The rewiring and new lighting systems for the main museum (funded by the Museums & Galleries Improvement Fund) are now complete, and the fibre-optic lighting system is in operation. The photographic and manuscript archive storage and study complex at 64 Banbury Road is also complete, and the archives were moved there in the spring. It is already clear that the provision, adjacent to the collections, of a proper study area for students and visiting researchers will make a real difference to the service that can be provided.
The appointment of Dr La Rue to the newly created joint Curator/Lecturership in Music for the Pitt Rivers Museum musical collections and the University’s Bate Collection solved a long-felt need for a permanent post. There are obvious intellectual advantages in combining the curatorship of two of the University’s notable music collections in one post. However, as two full-time posts have been amalgamated, there is concern that unless proper support systems are put in place it will prove difficult to do justice to each of them.
There were a number of other staff changes. Howard Morphy resigned his Curator/Lecturership to take up the Chair of Social Anthropology at University College London. His expertise will be hard to replace, and we are delighted that he has accepted the position of Honorary Curator at the Museum. Maria Economou joined the staff of the Museum as IT Officer, and Christina Fox joined as the Museum and Director’s Secretary. Linda Curson is the new Area Safety Officer.
Among the Museum’s special exhibitions, one broke new ground. Stories from South Africa was a joint initiative with Oxfordshire County Council (OCC), celebrating OCC’s educational and cultural links with the Eastern Province. The opening was attended by the Lord Lieutenant of the County and Counsellor Busi Bam of the South African High Commission.
The year ended on an up-beat note with the filming in the Museum of a number of sequences for Central Television’s production of Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse mystery The Daughters of Cain, in which Inspector Morse visits the Pitt Rivers Museum (regrettably the fictional source of a murder weapon stolen from a case).
Special Exhibitions in the Main Museum
The exhibition Embroideries from Islamic Journeys, which had opened on 23 September 1995, closed on 20 April 1996 (see previous annual report).
This was followed by Native American Photographs: Nineteenth-Century Images from the Collections, which was shown from 18 May to 28 September 1996. This concentrated on the work of the Washington studio, McClees & Vannerson; on John Hillers, who was photographer on the 1879 US Geological Survey Expedition to the Southwest; and on Charles Milton Bell. The exhibition comprised an ethnography of photography itself, rather than of the content of the photographs, examining the shifting styles in ways of representing Native American peoples. All the photographs had once belonged to either Professor E.B. Tylor or Professor H. Moseley and were donated in 1886. This was the first time original material from the photographic collections had been shown in the Museum. The Museum is grateful to Ms Paula Fleming of the National Anthropological Archives at the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, for help and advice, and to Caroline Hayes, one of the Museum’s graduate students, who worked as the research assistant on the exhibition.
Special Exhibitions in the Balfour Building
The exhibition Myanmar Thabin-Ah-Son: Blessings and Objects from Burmese Musical Drama continued to occupy the special exhibition cases in the music makers gallery into 1996.
This was followed by Stories from South Africa, an exhibition held in collaboration with Oxfordshire County Council, which opened on 20 April. The displays, which were selected and designed by the Museum’s graduate students, under the supervision of Jeremy Coote and Hélène La Rue, drew on the Museum’s reserve collections and focused on five themes: ‘History’, ‘Music and Dance’, ‘Beaded Belts’, ‘Art for Sale’, and ‘Shamanic Art of the San People’ (the last being a reused display, originally prepared by Ray Inskeep and Zachary Kingdon). These displays were complemented by an audio-visual display featuring photographs, by Ruth Charles, of Southern African archaeological sites.
Museum Events
The Pitt Stop activities, organized for children in the main museum on Saturday afternoons, continued throughout the year. The Museum’s graduate students continued to be involved in organizing them, and there was a special series in the school summer holidays arranged by Chantal Knowles and Catherine Robinson.
For National Museums Week the Museum joined forces with the University Museum of Natural History for a special open evening entitled ‘America North, America South’. Activities focusing on the American continent were organized for teachers and families. Unfortunately, due to torrential rain that evening (and perhaps also because it was not half-term week in Oxfordshire) the event was not well attended.
This year the annual National Music Weekend was extended to run for the whole month of June. There was an event each Saturday morning at the Bate Collection and each Saturday afternoon at the Museum. The month culminated in a weekend of music-making at the end of June, featuring the Eynsham morris men and some of the Oxfordshire Northumbrian pipers on the Saturday, and a day of North Indian music—Sharda Sahai once again generously giving his time to organize tabla demonstrations and a short concert—on the Sunday.
In September 1996 the Han Tang Yuefu Liyuan dance studio gave a concert-cum-demonstration at the Music Faculty. In a new co-operative venture between a number of University institutions, this event was jointly organized by the Institute for Chinese Studies, the Music Faculty, and the Museum.
Visitor Numbers
The visitor figures for the year rose once again: from 106,139 to 109,757. Educational group visits accounted for 18,576 of these visitors. This year it was possible for the first time to analyse the composition of educational bookings more closely. Just under a quarter were from primary schools, and nearly a half from secondary schools (including more than 2000 students in language-school groups). The remainder included adult and student groups from colleges, universities, and other organizations. These figures include visitors to the Balfour Building, whose numbers have remained roughly the same for the last two years (at just over 4300; including those who regularly attend classes, such as members of the tabla and gamelan groups, and those attending occasional events). The problems caused by the increasing number of language-school groups visiting the Museum and other Oxford venues lead to the formation of a city-wide group to discuss ways of improving services and management of these visits.
New Acquisitions
Donors were as follows: Rimantas Astraukas (a vessel-whistle and a cassette of folk music from Lithuania; 1995.56); Dr Flora M. Baber (a collection of musical instruments and other material from Uganda; 1996.28); Ian M. Balfour (a paddle used for stirring latex, from Brazil; 1996.22); the Rt Revd Edwin Barnes, Bishop of Richborough (a Sudanese pipe; 1996.2 / two North American arrow-heads; 1996.20); Sir John and Lady Burgh (a collection of material, mainly from Asia and South-East Asia; 1996.31); Michael Crouch (a Bedouin baby-carrier from South Yemen; 1996.25); Mrs R. M. Downes (a collection of stone axes from Nigeria; 1996.15); Maria Economou (a Greek coin; 1996.4); Roger Eland (a collection of earthenware from Borneo; 1996.19); Catherine Fagg (a collection of drawings and paintings by African schoolchildren; 1996.5); Stephen Farthing (a Mexican ratchet rattle; 1995.48); Dr G. Fray (a Zulu club; 1995.53); A. B. Hamilton (a collection of European, African, and Asian knives, swords and bayonets; 1996.11); Brigadier D. V. Henchley (an obsidian-bladed knife from the Admiralty Islands); Mr Ray Inskeep (a collection of archaeological material from the Canary Islands; 1996.14); Dr Schuyler Jones (a Black Hat dancer’s costume from Tibet; 1996.3 / four ceremonial scarves, a tea-cup, and a butter-box from Tibet, dzi beads and a rice mandala from Nepal; 1996.8); Tessa Katzenellenbogen (a copper egg and two baskets from South Africa; 1996.32); Mr Mark John Lambourne (an Indian soapstone figure; 1995.59); Dr Hélène La Rue (a collection of world music recordings; 1996.33); Beverley Lear (an Australian root-fibre cord; 1995.54); John Lowe (a collection of more than 700, mostly everyday, objects from Japan; 1996.17); Mrs G. Manuel (a collection of objects from Madagascar; 1996.16); William George Mennell (a Chinese double-membrane drum; 1995.57); Dr E. Ogilvie (an adze, beater, and sperm-whale tooth from Fiji; 1995.49); Mrs Juliet Pannett MBE (a collection of East African material; 1996.21); Dr Ioannis Papadakis (a collection of Cypriot wax votive offerings; 1996.29); Nick Pearson (a scarab, a linen sample, and an ear of corn, from Ancient Egypt; 1995.55); John Pike (two firesticks from Sabah, Malaysia; 1996.12); Kenneth and Angela Robinson (two Iban woven blankets from Sarawak; 1996.13); James H. B. Roy (two African wicker helmets; 1996.6); Aritaka Senzan (a Ship of Fortune, made of mizuhiki work; 1996.18); Rupert Sinclair (three Tibetan thanka paintings; 1996.7); Valerie Stewart (a collection of arrows and spears from Papua New Guinea; 1995.58); the Trustees of the Father Damian Webb Collection, Ampleforth Abbey (a sound archive relating to children’s singing games; 1996.34); Valerie Vowles (nine matchboxes from Papua New Guinea; 1996.30); Phyllis M. Wager (a collection of clothing and other material from East Greenland; 1996.27); Dr Mike J. Whelan (a collection of Japanese clothing; 1996.23); Miss Joan Wilkinson (two English puppets; 1996.26); Brian Winkfield (a collection of English fish-hooks; 1995.50); Mrs J. O. Wright (an incense-burner from Ladakh; 1996.9).
Purchases were as follows: souvenir items from Cape Town, South Africa collected by Jeremy Coote (1996.24).
Transfers were as follows: recordings of world music for the sound archive, from the Faculty of Music, University of Oxford (1996.35).
Archive accessions included donations to the photographic collections from Mr Tim Barton, Mrs S. Chorley, Mrs M. Ganguli, and Mr Anthony Walker. A sizable donation was a series of black-and-white photographs and colour slides taken and generously donated by Mark Lowe and John Lowe, relating to the large collection of Japanese objects donated by John Lowe. A major purchase was Untitled, a contemporary work by Dave Lewis, which was made in the Lower Gallery of the Museum. As a contemporary photographic art work this is an unusual accession for an ethnographic museum. However, it encapsulates a certain phase in anthropological thinking in general, and museum thinking in particular, in a way that coheres well with the Museum’s collecting policy. A small collection of manuscripts and photographs relating to Peru was also acquired by purchase.
Loans to other Museums
A steel-wire bow that had been on long-term loan to the Royal Armouries at the Tower of London since 1974 was returned in November 1995. Three fish mascots that had been on loan to the National Fishing Heritage Centre, Grimsby since July 1994 were returned in January 1996. Fifty-two photographs of mortuary ritual and monuments that had been on loan to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford since September 1995 were returned in January 1996.
In October 1995, material from the photographic collections was loaned to the Photographers Gallery, London for the exhibition The Impossible Science of Being; it was returned in January 1996. In June 1996 the same material was lent to Leeds City Art Gallery for a showing of the same exhibition; it was returned in July. In August it was lent to Brighton Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery and Museums for another showing of the same exhibition; it was returned in September. Also in October 1995, a San (Bushman) engraved ostrich-egg, a Kongo cushion-cover, and a Sapi steatite figural group were lent to the Royal Academy, London for the exhibition Africa: The Art of a Continent; they were returned in January 1996. In March 1996 the same pieces were lent to the Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft, Berlin for a version of the same exhibition held at the Martin-Gropius-Bau; they were returned in May. In June the same pieces were also lent to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York for another version of the same exhibition; they were returned in September. In November 1995 four Australian Aboriginal message-sticks from the Howitt collection were lent to the Crafts Council, London for the exhibition Codes and Messages; they were returned in February. In April, seven early nineteenth-century leather figures from South Africa were lent to the South African National Gallery, Cape Town for the exhibition Miscast in History: An Exhibition of San History and Material Culture; they were returned in September 1996.
Research Visits and Enquiries
The Museum’s documentation section dealt with more than 320 written enquiries (including an increasing number by e-mail), more than 150 telephone enquiries, and more than 135 visiting researchers. The number of enquiries continues to increase and the range of enquiries continues to be wide-ranging. They also dealt with a number of objects brought in for identification. As usual, technical services staff assisted greatly with researchers requiring access to material in the reserve collections. The conservation staff assisted in dealing with researchers requiring access to material in the textile store.
There were 98 research visitors to the archive collections during the year, as well as innumerable postal, telephone, and e-mail enquiries from all over the world. Demand for access to the Tibetan collections remained high, although the Pacific collections were also in great demand. In addition to looking at collections, many visitors came to discuss curatorial matters, such as documentation and storage (on which Museum staff advised a number of institutions during the year), or academic issues related to the collections.
Museum Documentation and Records
Julia Nicholson was on maternity leave from November 1995 to July 1996. To cover her absence, her job-share partner (and husband) Jeremy Coote was employed full-time. Marina de Alarcón continued to do sterling work in all aspects of the section’s responsibilities. The work of the section was helped enormously from November 1995 to April 1996 through the employment on a voluntary basis of Nicolette Meister. This extra pair of hands enabled the department to take on and complete a number of important, time-consuming collections-management tasks. For example, the Museum’s extensive collections of boomerangs and spear-throwers were located, numbered, and their records updated before they were bagged and rehoused in storage at the main museum. Ms Meister also took on the task of accessioning the John Lowe collection of Japanese objects (numbering more than 700 separate items), a project that would have been impossible for the section to complete without additional staff.
Alison Petch continued her research, funded by a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, into the founding collection donated by General Pitt Rivers in 1884. The preparation of full computer records for all accessioned objects from this collection was completed and work continued on the preparation of computer records for those items in the collection that had not been accessioned upon delivery. Records for various other parts of the collection were also computerized. Among these were the Cypriot and Japanese archaeological collections, the Maori material from the collection of Maggie Papakura (better known as Makereti), copies of uli paintings from the Ibo of Southern Nigeria, and barkcloth from the Solomon Islands. The Museum is grateful to Fumiko Ohinata for her assistance with the recataloguing of the Japanese archaeological collections, and to Marie-Claire Bakker for her work on part of the extensive collection of amulets transferred from the Wellcome Institute in the 1980s.
Archives
It was a momentous year for the archives section. Following years of frustration concerning the shortage of storage and work space, the photograph and manuscript collections were moved to a specially converted suite—combining stores, offices, and a study room—in the Museum’s research centre at 64 Banbury Road. Photographs and manuscripts are now stored separately, in optimum environmental conditions, reflecting their differing storage and preservation needs. The Museums & Galleries Commission, the South Eastern Museums Service, and the University’s Hulme Fund generously grant-aided this development.
Naturally, much of the year’s work was focused on preparing for the move and sorting out the inevitable problems consequent upon re-housing material. Fortunately, the move was undertaken with relatively minor disruption to access for visiting scholars. Given that there are no full-time staff in the archive section, it was decided to make the collections available to visiting scholars on Thursdays and Fridays only. While this may appear to amount to a reduction in services, the streamlining of procedures and the better facilities offered on the new site have meant that research visitors now have guaranteed access in a dedicated archival space. As a result, since the move there has been a clear increase in the use made of the collections.
Problems still remain, notably the continuing part-time staffing at senior curatorial level despite increasing curatorial and teaching demands, and the lack of staff to address major cataloguing backlogs. However, with the move to new premises completed, the infrastructure is now in place to begin to address at least the latter problem.
The move to a different site meant that Marina de Alarcón could no longer run visitor services for both the archive and documentation sections. She moved to the docmentation section full time and Miss Emma Dean was appointed to the part-time post of Curatorial Assistant (Archives) in her place.
Music Collections
In the course of the year further cataloguing work was carried out on the music catalogue and the sound archive. Funds were found to employ Chantal Knowles, one of the Museum’s graduate students, for part of the summer to organize newly donated material, including Father Damian Webb’s collection and a collection of 78 and 33 rpm discs transferred from the Music Faculty. Work also continued on the computer database for the music collections. This has been brought into line with the format used in the main catalogue, a process that entailed adding information to many records and amending some of the internal details of all 5610 records.
Balfour Library
Veronica Lawrence reports that the important event of the year was the introduction of the new Oxford Libraries Information Service (OLIS), though the specially designed cataloguing module still requires implementation. Some retrospective conversion of the card catalogue and some reclassification has been undertaken as time has allowed. Technical services staff created additional shelf space above the centre bays on the ground floor of the Library, temporarily alleviating some of the Library’s chronic space problems. The Quaternary Research Library at 64 Banbury Road has been reorganized and its holdings are being catalogued by volunteers from the Friends of the Museum.
Donations of books were received from the following individuals and institutions: Tristan Arbousse-Bastide, the Ashmolean Library, Ronald Daniel Auerbach, Brigitte Bachmann-Geiser, Marie-Claire Bakker, Marcus Banks, Hans-Dieter Biemert, Professor Dionisio Blanco, Virginia Bond, the British Institute in Eastern Africa, Jean Brown, Sir John and Lady Burgh, K. Chaouachi, Mrs E.M. Chilver, Marcus Colchester, Jacqueline Coote, Jeremy Coote, Julia Cousins, Dr Patricia Darish, Geoffrey and Joyce Dodds, Dr Gisela Dombrowski, Sylvie Douce de la Salle, Henry Drewal, Edmond Srl, Elizabeth Edwards, Dr Arne and Dr Eva Eggebrecht, William A. Fagaly, Mrs Catherine Fagg, Fondation Simón I. Patiño, Christraud Geary, Chris Gosden, the Green Centre for Non-Western Art, Lennox Honychurch, the Reverend Jeff Hopewell, Mrs H.M.C. Hughes-Brock, Norman Hurst, the Indian Institute Library, Ray Inskeep, the Instituto Panamericano de Geografia and Historia, the Istituto Universitario Orientale, Hannah Jones, Dr S. Jones, Hélène La Rue, J. S. Lea-Wilson, Katherine C. Lee, G.B. Lowe, John Lowe, Robert K. Lui, Ivan Macák, John Macallister, Jeremy MacClancy, Chris McDonaugh, Professor Alan MacFarlane, Dr Betty Meggers, Mrs F. J. Milbank, Julia Nicholson, Michael Osborn, Simon Ottenberg, Roderick Owen, Gigi Pezzoli, Phototèque du Musée de l’Homme, Clemencia Plazas, Tania Rei, Rhodes House Library, Valerie Robertson, Mari Saito, the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Karl-Ferdinand Schaedler, Tina Seligman, Ray Silverman, Séamas Ó. Síocháin, R.R. Soleimani, Humberto Soto-Ricart, Dr John E. Stanton, George W. Stocking, Takayama Institute of Historical Studies, Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties, T. Mason Trainer, the Tylor Library, the University Museum, Paul Unsworth, Hilde Van Braeckel, Pauline van der Zee, William Waldren, Dr Elizabeth E. Wein, Jürgen Weiner, Reverend G. Westlake, and Felicity Wood. The total number of donations, including books, periodical issues, and pamphlets, came to 385 items.
Among the more significant acquisitions were The Dictionary of Art (a major reference work in 34 volumes), acquired with the generous help of the Friends of the Museum and a number of individual donors, and nineteen volumes on archaeology from the library of Jacquetta Hawkes.
The Library was sorry to lose the expert assistance of Ms Rose Page, who left to concentrate on other projects. Ms Ruth Emsley replaced her and has joined Mrs I. Tayler in the often demanding duties involved in minding the Library Desk. The Librarian was made a member of the Faculty of Anthropology.
Conservation
Once again a great variety of work was carried out by staff in the conservation section. The backbone of the section’s work, however, remains the treatment of objects: records show that 455 objects were worked on in the laboratory during the year. Very occasionally an object in need of conservation cannot be taken to the laboratory because it is too large or too fragile to move. This was the case with the large model of a gunboat that can be seen on display in the court. During the year conservation staff repaired the severely damaged rigging in situ. Although the conditions were not ideal, working in the Museum did enable staff to discuss the work with members of the public, perhaps giving some visitors an insight into conservation work at the Museum. In preparation for the installation of new display cases along the north wall of the lower gallery, the objects on display there were removed from the old cases and treated. Material for the permanent lower gallery displays on rank and status in Nuristan and in the North-West Coast of America was also treated and advice given on its display.
Conservation staff assisted with special exhibitions, helping to take down Embroideries from Islamic Journeys and helping with the lighting of Native American Photographs: Nineteenth-Century Images from the Collections. Assistance was also given with the preparation of material for Stories from South Africa, and work was begun on material from the John Lowe collection in preparation for a forthcoming exhibition.
The ongoing pest survey continued on a weekly basis, and the survey of cellulose nitrate material was put on a more formal basis. The survey of archaeological metalwork was also continued as time permitted. As well as continuing the Museum’s own programme of freezing all incoming material and objects at risk from infestation, conservation staff also treated books for the Bodleian Library and wooden sculpture for the Ashmolean Museum.
With the planned re-roofing of the main museum in mind, an environmental assessment of the building was arranged. Part-funding from the Department of Trade and Industry’s Energy Design Advice Scheme enabled the Museum to employ architectural consultants Short, Ford & Associates to study the building. They examined data provided by the Museum’s own environmental monitoring system and conducted airflow studies inside the building. With the aid of a thermal performance simulator, they were able to draw up a report explaining the causes of the current, unacceptable, environmental conditions and to propose a range of suggestions as to how to improve matters. These suggestions included the insulation of the roof and the introduction of an effective ventilation system to provide more easily regulated temperature and humidity.
Throughout the year conservation staff also worked with staff from Museum & Gallery Lighting to improve the lighting of the wall cases in the court and the lower gallery through the introduction and adjustment of fibre-optic lights. The new system is designed to keep the light levels at a safe limit while providing a more even spread of light than the fluorescent tubes had given.
The Conservation section hosted a day’s visit to the Museum for students on the PREMA (Prevention in Museums in Sub-Saharan Africa) course run by ICCROM (International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property). They were also pleased to welcome Anna Hillcoat, a student of paper conservation at Camberwell College of Art, for a one-month placement to gain experience working on three-dimensional objects made of paper.
Staff were also involved in a number of research projects during the year. For example, Tamsin O’Connell from the University of Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art carried out analysis on human-hair samples held by the Museum. She and her colleague Christina Nielsen-Marsh also helped with the dye-analysis of barkcloth from the Solomon Islands. In the summer Dr Vincent Daniels, Senior Research Scientist at the British Museum, visited the department. Conservation staff were able to provide him with samples of dyed flax fibres used in the construction of Maori skirts, which Dr Daniels is analysing as part of a study of ethnographic black pigments.
Education Services and Guides
During the year the education service managed visits from 43 school groups, totalling 1196 pupils; the smallest group numbering 12 students, the largest 70. The groups came mainly from Oxfordshire and adjoining counties, but some came from as afar afield as Uxbridge and Cardiff. The subjects covered were mainly those laid down by the National Curriculum—for example, the Aztecs, Ancient Egypt, and Benin—but there were also some general tours. The guides continued to be concerned at the small number of people running the Education Service and made efforts to recruit more helpers. As part of this recruitment drive they ran a series of training sessions in Trinity Term.
Marketing and Visitor Services
During 1995 it was agreed to create a post with the title of Marketing and Visitor Services Officer to co-ordinate and develop the provision of services for the general public and related revenue-raising activities. In December 1995 Kate White produced a marketing report for the Museum’s curatorial committee, updating the report produced by Sue Runyard in 1992 and highlighting key areas for clarification and development. In the short term these include improved signing, longer opening hours, provision for public feedback, plus a review of the responsibilities covered by the new post. This led in turn to the production in April 1996 of a draft policy for Marketing and Visitor Services.
Demand for the photographic services increased, with sales of prints and reproduction rights raising £4765, an increase of more than £1000 on the previous year. The Museum was also hired for four filming sessions during the year: once by Welsh TV for its series ‘JiwJiw’; twice by the BBC for ‘Origins’ and ‘Out of This World’; and once by Central Television for its adaptation of the Inspector Morse book The Daughters of Cain .
The Museum’s publications committee was reformed in June 1996 with an extended remit. It will consider matters relating to the general interpretation of the collections and the provision of services for the general public, as well as the Museum’s publishing programme. The Committee also has responsibility for developing the Museum’s website.
The Museum Shops
The total turnover for both shops was £68,707 (net £63,430). This resulted in a profit, after the deduction of overheads including wages, of £9404. Sales of postcards represented 9.5% of the total sales and 15% of the profits, justifying the large space given to their display. The total book sales, including those of the Museum’s own publications, amounted to £25,075, indicating how the public rely on museum shops for specialist publications not to be found in the high street bookshops.
Publications
The major Museum publication of the year was Donald Tayler’s new book Embarkations: Ethnography and Shamanism of the Chocó Indians of Colombia, which was published as number 6 in the Museum’s Monograph Series. Native American Photographs: Nineteenth-Century Images from the Collections, by Elizabeth Edwards, was published (in a new ‘concertina-style’ format) to accompany the special exhibition. The Pitt Rivers Museum: A Souvenir Guide to the Collections, by Julia Cousins, was reprinted, as was Hair Embroidery in Siberia and North America, by Geoffrey Turner, which was first published by the Museum in 1955.
Teaching and Examining
Jeremy Coote lectured and gave tutorials on African art and aesthetics to the Museum’s graduate students.
Elizabeth Edwards continued giving lectures, seminars, tutorials, and supervisions in critical history and the theory of still photography to the Museum’s graduate students. She also contributed to the teaching in museology. She also gave lectures and seminars in other institutions and departments within the University.
Chris Gosden lectured in the ‘World Archaeology’, ‘Regional Studies in Material Culture’, and ‘People Environment and Culture’ series. He was Chairman of Examiners in Honours Moderations for the Anthropology & Archaeology degree.
Schuyler Jones gave lectures in the ‘People, Environment and Culture’ series. He gave classes for students taking the ‘Museum Studies’ option, held tutorials for undergraduates and supervised a number of graduate students.
Hélène La Rue took up the new post of University Lecturer and Curator (of the Bate Collections and of the musical collections in the Pitt Rivers Museum) on 1 October 1995. This made the year exceptionally busy, as there was much to be learnt about the running of the Bate Collection as well as a new series of lectures to prepare. She continued to give her weekly lecture on ethnomusicology for the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography; while for the Music Faculty she taught two courses on the history of European musical instruments. She also taught a course on ‘Musical Instruments Worldwide’, for which the music makers gallery at the Balfour Building was an important resource.
Derek Roe provided his usual teaching on Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology for the graduate degree courses and for Final Honours undergraduates in Archaeology & Anthropology and in Geography. He also gave several special lectures for undergraduates in their first and second years. He held the post of Director of Graduate Studies for the Committee for Archaeology and became heavily involved in a complete overhaul of all the taught Master’s degree courses in Archaeology under the Committee’s aegis.
Birgitte Speake gave a seminar on the work of the conservation section to the Museum’s graduate students.
Donald Tayler lectured in the ‘People, Environment, and Culture’ and ‘Art and Material Culture’ series. He gave eight classes in a series entitled ‘Introduction to Ethnographic Film’ and co-chaired the M.St. seminars and the ‘Museum Studies’ seminars. He served as an Examiner for the M.St. and M.Phil. in Ethnology and Museum Ethnography, as an Assessor for the Ethnology paper in Geography Mods, and as Co-ordinator for Paper III in Archaeology & Anthropology Mods and for Paper IV in Human Sciences prelims. He also tutored graduate and undergraduate students for various courses, supervised seven D.Phil. students, assessed two D.Phils., and examined a further one.
Students
This year fifteen students sat the examinations in Ethnology and Museum Ethnography, two gaining distinctions. With the amalgamation of anthropology teaching in Oxford under the aegis of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), full details of students in cultural anthropology (Ethnology and Museum Ethnography) are now included in the ISCA Annual Report. During the year some twenty students were carrying out doctoral research in cultural anthropology. These included: Lennox Honychurch (Dominican social history), Ming Jung Ho (Taiwan Tzu Chi), John Harrison (change in American Northwest coast art), Morgan Perkins (contemporary Chinese art), Veronica Strang (Australian Aboriginal cultural landscapes), Merete Jakobsen (Greenland shamanism), and Robert Elgood (Indian armour).
Among the doctoral research students in Prehistoric Archaeology were John Mitchell (microwear analysis of handaxes from Boxgrove, Sussex and other British sites), Julie Scott-Jackson (British Lower Palaeolithic sites and the clay-with-flints of the chalk downlands), Hyeong Woo Lee (Palaeolithic of the Upper Thames Valley), Sabrina Dumont (final Palaeolithic industries in France and southern Britain), and Marcos Llobera (application of GIS techniques to archaeology).
The Donald Baden-Powell Quaternary Research Centre
The Centre has been as busy as ever, as the Oxford base for graduate and postdoctoral students working on the earlier segments of Prehistory, with increasing use also by second- and third-year undergraduates, studying Palaeolithic Archaeology as part of the Archaeology & Anthropology BA degree. Next year a new Palaeolithic Archaeology option will be offered in the Final Honours School, and some current undergraduates have already chosen Palaeolithic dissertation topics. As usual, various parties of students from other universities have visited the Centre during the year, the main attractions on these occasions being a lecture and handling session on Palaeolithic implements given by Derek Roe, a visit to the laboratory to see a demonstration of microwear analysis by John Mitchell, and a visit to the Hunter–Gatherer Gallery in the adjacent Balfour Building. Individual visitors during the year have included Professor Romauld Schild from Poland (under the auspices of the British Academy), Dr Richard Cosgrave from Australia, Dr Julie Cormack from Berkeley, California (working with Dr Roe on the publication of Early Stone Age artefacts from Kalambo Falls, Zambia), Dr Wil Roebroeks from Holland, Professor Bog-Soon Shin from Korea, and Professor John Speth from Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was also a great pleasure to receive an informal visit from Mr Francis Baden-Powell, son of Donald Baden-Powell, the benefactor who generously gave the Centre to the University some twenty-one years ago.
Post-doctoral researchers based at the Centre throughout the year have included Dr Bill Waldren (Balearic archaeology), Dr Katharine Scott (the Stanton Harcourt ‘Oxford Mammoths’ project), Dr Ruth Charles (the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in north-west Europe), Dr Susan Keates (early human occupation of China), and Dr Pamela Wace. Dr Wace has continued to organize work on the Museum’s British and foreign archaeological collections, from a base at the Centre, and this year made a visit to Japan in connection with her work.
The Museum and the Research Centre would like to record their special thanks to the incomparable Mac (Mr R.J. MacRae), tireless recorder of British Palaeolithic sites in the field and rescuer of their artefacts, mentor of so many graduate students over the years, and latterly an Honorary Curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum. He has moved to Norfolk but remains a most welcome occasional visitor.
Other Staff Activities
Jeremy Coote continued to serve as an associate editor of JASO: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford. He also continued to serve as the Museum’s representative on the Oxford Visual Arts Planning Group. He acted as mentor to the holder of a Crafts Council Curation Bursary. He visited the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery to examine their documentation systems and computerized databases. He also took advantage of his couriering trip to New York to meet with colleagues and examine the documentation systems at the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History.
Elizabeth Edwards gave lectures and seminars at the Universities of Manchester, Cambridge, and Columbia (New York), and at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh. She gave an invited paper at the Pacific Historians Association conference in Hilo, Hawaii, receiving a British Academy award in order to attend. She gave a paper in the visual session of the Institute of Field Archaeologists conference in Manchester and attended the Museum Ethnographers Group conference, also in Manchester. She made two trips to research her contribution to the forthcoming volume commemorating the centenary of the Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition, working extensively in collections in Cambridge, Washington, and New York. She continued to serve on the Photographic Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute, on the editorial board of History of Photography, and as the Chair of the Museum Ethnographers Group. She was also appointed Visiting Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, London.
Chris Gosden carried out archaeological fieldwork in the Sumbar and Chandyr valleys of Turkmenistan in March and April 1996, test-excavating nine sites in an attempt to build up the first prehistoric chronology for the region. In July 1996 he carried out further excavations on and around the Iron Age hillfort at Segsbury in South Oxfordshire, together with Gary Lock of the University’s Institute of Archaeology. He continues to write up the results of fieldwork in both the New Britain and New Ireland provinces of Papua New Guinea, as well as more general works on the Pacific, in addition to writing up his more recent fieldwork in Turkmenistan. He began writing a book on archaeology and anthropology. He gave papers in Reading, London, and Sheffield. He was external examiner at the Institute of Archaeology in London. He continued to sit on the editorial boards of World Archaeology, Archaeology in Oceania, Ethnographisch-Archaologische Zeitschrift, and Cambridge University Press’s ‘World Archaeology’ series.
Emma Hook continued to serve as the organizer of the Oxford Conservators Group. Among other events she hosted a very well attended seminar on environmental monitoring. She attended a one-day workshop on disaster planning (which proved very helpful for drafting the Museum’s disaster plan). She attended a demonstration, held at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, of the Thermolignum system of pest control. In Edinburgh in September she attended the triennial conference of the Committee for Conservation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM–CC).
Hélène La Rue continued to serve as Chairman of the Musical Collections Forum, and in that capacity participated in the Museums Association’s annual conference and acted as a course leader for a programme, held at the Bowes Museum, on the exhibition and care of musical instruments.
Peter Mitchell continued to write up fieldwork from previous seasons’ excavations and field surveys in Lesotho and visited South Africa to develop plans for a co-ordinated programme of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research in the Lesotho Highlands. Though not carrying out fieldwork himself this year, he made arrangements for eight Oxford undergraduates to work on projects in Bénin, South Africa, and Zambia. He also began work on a catalogue of the Southern African Stone Age archaeological collections at the British Museum, for publication as a monograph. As well as giving a guest lecture at Cambridge, he gave papers at conferences in London, Bloemfontein, and Poznan and was an invited participant in a symposium on the organization of African lithic technologies at the Society of American Archaeology meeting in New Orleans. He took up the post of Secretary to the Commission on Archaeology and Human Palaeoecology of the International Quaternary Association (INQUA) and co-organized the first of a series of meetings of Africanist archaeologists in Europe, held at the British Museum in October 1995.
Alison Petch visited the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to examine its documentation systems and computerized database. She twice visited the University Library in Cambridge to examine the illustrated catalogues of the former ‘other’ Pitt Rivers Museum at Farnham currently held there.
Derek Roe was co-director, with Dr A. Lawson of the Trust for Wessex Archaeology, of a weekend conference on British Palaeolithic Archaeology, organized by the University of Oxford’s External Studies Department and held in Oxford in November 1995. He gave the opening lecture for this, chaired various of the sessions, and organized an exhibition of relevant archaeological material. During Hilary Term, he gave a course of eight lectures at Cambridge. He continued his involvement with the team researching the earliest Palaeolithic occupation of the Orce Basin in Andalucía. No fieldwork was carried out there this year, but progress was made towards publication of the finds made so far, and plans are being made for further fieldwork. In Britain, he undertook a detailed study of the stone artefacts recovered during several years of excavation at the Stanton Harcourt Middle Pleistocene site. He continued to serve on five editorial or advisory boards for international journals, on the Archaeology Advisory Committee of the National Museums and Galleries of Wales, and on the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Irene Levi-Sala CARE Foundation for Archaeological Research in Israel. With Professor D. Austin of the University of Wales at Lampeter, he undertook the detailed evaluation and eventual validation of the new Honours BA course in Archaeology for the University of Wales College of Newport.
Birgitte Speake attended the conference ‘Sacred Dirt’ organized by the Textile Conservation Centre at the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum (Museum of Mankind). She attended a demonstration, held at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, of the Thermolignum system of pest control. While couriering loan material to Berlin, she visited the Museum für Völkerkunde, Dahlem and the Kunstgewerbe Museum to examine their storage methods. In Edinburgh in September she attended the triennial conference of the Committee for Conservation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CC).
Lorraine Rostant passed (with distinction) her Certificate in Conservation at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. She attended a demonstration, at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, of the Thermolignum system of pest control.
Staff Publications
Jeremy Coote, ‘1993 Debate: Aesthetics is a Cross-Cultural Category—For the Motion, 2’, in Key Debates in Anthropology, edited by Tim Ingold, London: Routledge (1996), pp. 266–71.
Jeremy Coote, ‘Bongo Grave Figures’, in Africa: The Art of a Continent, edited by Tom Phillips, London: Royal Academy (1995), pp. 137–8; also in German in Afrika: Die Kunst eines Kontinents, Berlin: Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft (1996), pp. 137–8; also, in revised form, in Africa: The Art of a Continent—100 Works of Power and Beauty, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1996), p. 70.
Jeremy Coote, ‘Iraqw Skirt’, in Africa: The Art of a Continent, edited by Tom Phillips, London: Royal Academy (1995), p. 156; also in German in Afrika: Die Kunst eines Kontinents, Berlin: Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft (1996), pp. 156; also, in revised form, in Africa: The Art of a Continent—100 Works of Power and Beauty, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1996), p. 65.
Jeremy Coote (with Hilde Van Braeckel), ‘Kongo Cushion-Cover’, in Africa: The Art of a Continent, edited by Tom Phillips, London: Royal Academy (1995), p. 275; also in German in Afrika: Die Kunst eines Kontinents, Berlin: Zeitgeist-Gesellschaft (1996), p. 275; also, in revised form, in Africa: The Art of a Continent—100 Works of Power and Beauty, New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1996), pp. 104–5.
Jeremy Coote, ‘African Collections in the British Isles’, in Museum News, no. 63 (Autumn 1995), p. 2.
Jeremy Coote, ‘Africa, I. Introduction, 4. Religion, (ii) Christianity’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 127–8.
Jeremy Coote, ‘Bibliography’ to ‘Africa, IX. Contemporary Developments’, by John Povey, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), p. 434.
Jeremy Coote (with John Mack), ‘Africa, VII. Regions, 7. East Africa’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 406–13.
Jeremy Coote (with Tamara Lucas), ‘Austral Islands’, in Volume 2 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 773–4.
Jeremy Coote (with Tamara Lucas), ‘Swaziland’, in Volume 30 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), p. 63.
Jeremy Coote (area editor for Africa and Oceania), The Dictionary of Art (34 volumes), edited by Jane Shoaf Turner, New York: Grove.
Elizabeth Edwards, Native American Photographs: Nineteenth-Century Images from the Collections—An Introduction, Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (1996).
Elizabeth Edwards, Review of The Working of Miracles—William Ellis: Photography in Madagascar, 1853–1865 (an exhibition held at the Fine Art Society, London, 3 to 30 July 1995), in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 8 (May 1996), pp. 125–8.
Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Seeing How “Others” Die: An Historical Perspective from Anthropology’, in The Dead (catalogue of an exhibition with the same title held at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 5 October 1995 to 7 January 1996), edited by Val Williams and Greg Hobson, Bradford: National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, pp. 28–34.
Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Antropologia e Fotografia’, in Cadernos de Antropologia e Imagem , Vol. II (1996), pp. 11–28.
Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Photography’, in The Dictionary of Anthropology, edited by Thomas Barfield, Oxford: Blackwell (1997), pp. 358–9.
Elizabeth Edwards, ‘Postcards: Greetings from another World’, in The Tourist Image: Myths and Myth Making in Tourism, edited by Tom Selwyn, Chichester: John Wiley (1996), pp. 197–221.
Chris Gosden, ‘Arboriculture and Agriculture in Coastal Papua New Guinea’, in Antiquity, Vol. LXIX (Special Number 265; ‘Transitions: Pleistocene to Holocene in Australia and Papua New Guinea’, edited by Jim Allen and James F. O’Connell), (1995), pp. 807–17.
Chris Gosden, ‘Can We Take the Aryan Out of Heideggerian?’, in Archaeological Dialogues, Vol. III, no. 1 (April 1996), pp. 22–5.
Chris Gosden (with J. Allen), ‘Spheres of Interaction and Integration: Modelling the Culture History of the Bismarck Archipelago’, in Oceanic Culture History: Essays in Honour of Roger Green, edited by J. M. Davidson, G. Irwin, B. F. Leach, A. Pawley, and D. Brown, Wellington, NZ: New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication (1996), pp. 183–97.
Chris Gosden (with David R. Harris), ‘The Beginnings of Agriculture in Western Central Asia’, in The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia, edited by David R. Harris, London: UCL Press (1996), pp. 370–89.
Veronica Lawrence, ‘The Role of the Monasteries of Syon and Sheen in the Production, Ownership, and Circulation of Mystical Literature in the late Middle Ages’, in Volume 10 of The Mystical Tradition and the Carthusians (Analecta Cartusiana 130), edited by James Hogg, Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universität Salzburg (1996), pp. 101–15.
Peter Mitchell, ‘Stories in Stone: A Review of Southern African Lithic Research’, in Lithics in Context, edited by A. J. Schofield, London: The Lithic Studies Society (1995), pp. 73–89.
Peter Mitchell, ‘Prehistoric Exchange and Interaction in Southeastern Southern Africa: Marine Shells and Ostrich Eggshell’, African Archaeological Review, Vol. XIII, no. 1 (1996), pp. 35–76.
Peter Mitchell, ‘The Late Quaternary Landscape at Sehonghong in the Lesotho Highlands, Southern Africa’, Antiquity, Vol. LXX, no. 269 (September 1996), pp. 623–38.
Peter Mitchell, ‘The Late Quaternary of the Lesotho Highlands, Southern Africa: Preliminary Results and Future Potential of Recent Research at Sehonghong Shelter’, Quaternary International, Vol. XXXIII (‘Quaternary Environments: A Southern African Perspective’, edited by Louis Scott and Peter R. Beaumont), (1996), pp. 35–43.
Peter Mitchell, ‘Sehonghong: The Late Holocene Assemblages with Pottery’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, Vol. LI, no. 163 (June 1996), pp. 17–25.
Peter Mitchell, ‘Filling a Gap: The Early and Middle Holocene Assemblages from New Excavations at Sehonghong Rock Shelter, Lesotho’, Southern African Field Archaeology, Vol. V, no. 1 (April 1996), pp. 17–27.
Peter Mitchell, ‘The Archaeology of the Phuthiatsana Basin: Excavated Sites and Rock Art’, in Archaeological Sites of the Free State and Western Lesotho, edited by J. S. Brink, J. Dreyer, Z. L. Henderson, and S. Ouzman, Blomfontein: Southern African Association of Archaeologists (1996), pp. 47–57.
Peter Mitchell, ‘Comment [on ‘Symbiotic Interaction between Black Farmers and South-Eastern San: Implications for Southern African Rock Art Studies, Ethnographic Analogy, and Hunter–Gatherer Cultural Identity’, by Pieter Jolly]’, Current Anthropology, Vol. XXXVII, no. 2 (1997), pp. 291–92.
Peter Mitchell, Review of Archaeology of the Dreamtime: The Story of Prehistoric Australia and its People (3rd edn), by J. Flood (London, 1995), in Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. XXIII, no. 4 (1996), pp. 635–7.
Peter Mitchell (with R. L. C. Charles), ‘Archaeological Investigation of an Open-Air Hunter–Gatherer Site in the Lesotho Highlands: Preliminary Report on the 1995 Season at Likoaieng’, in Nyame Akuma, Vol. XLV (1996), pp. 40–49.
Peter Mitchell (with Royden Yates and John E. Parkington), ‘At the Transition: The Archaeology of the Pleistocene–Holocene Boundary in Southern Africa’, in Humans at the End of the Ice Age: The Archaeology of the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition (Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology), edited by Lawrence Guy Straus, Berit Valentin Eriksen, Jon M. Erlandson, and David R. Yesner, New York: Plenum Press (1996), pp. 15–41.
Howard Morphy, ‘1993 Debate: Aesthetics is a Cross-Cultural Category—For the Motion, 1’, in Key Debates in Anthropology, edited by Tim Ingold, London: Routledge (1996), pp. 255–60.
Howard Morphy, ‘Empiricism to Metaphysics: In Defence of the Concept of the Dreamtime’, in Prehistory to Politics: John Mulvaney, the Humanities and the Public Intellectual, edited by Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths, Melbourne: Melbourne University Press (1996), pp. 163–89.
Howard Morphy, ‘Material Culture’, in The Social Science Encyclopedia (2nd edn), edited by Adam Kuper and Jessica Kuper, London: Routledge (1996), pp. 513–15.
Howard Morphy, ‘Proximity and Distance: Representations of Aboriginal Society in the Writings of Bill Harney and Bruce Chatwin’ in Popularizing Anthropology, edited by Jeremy MacClancy and Chris McDonaugh, London: Routledge, pp. 157–79.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, I. Introduction’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 36–9.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, II. Traditional Art Forms’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), p. 39.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, II. Traditional Art Forms, 7. Bark Painting’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 50–52.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, III. Regions, 5. Eastern Arnhem Land’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 60–61.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, V. Collectors and Dealers’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), p. 66.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, VI. Museums and Exhibitions’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 66–7.
Howard Morphy, ‘Aboriginal Australia, VII. Historiography’, in Volume 1 of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner, New York: Grove (1996), pp. 67–8.
Howard Morphy (area adviser for Aboriginal Australia), The Dictionary of Art (34 volumes), edited by Jane Shoaf Turner, New York: Grove.
Howard Morphy (with A. Petch and J. Mulvaney), ‘From the Archives: Gillen’s Scientific Correspondence: Selected Letters from F. J. Gillen to W. Baldwin Spencer’, in JASO: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, Vol. XXVI, no. 2 (Trinity 1996), pp. 163–96.
Julia Nicholson, Review of Cultures of the World: The Ethnographic Collections of Dundee Art Galleries and Museums, by Andrew Proctor (Dundee, 1994), in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 8 (May 1996), pp. 132–3.
Alison Petch, ‘Weapons and “The Museum of Museums”’, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 8 (May 1996), pp. 11–22.
Alison Petch (with H. Morphy and J. Mulvaney), ‘From the Archives: Gillen’s Scientific Correspondence: Selected Letters from F. J. Gillen to W. Baldwin Spencer’, in JASO: Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, Vol. XXVI, no. 2 (Trinity 1996), pp. 163–96.
Derek Roe, ‘Father Thames and the British Pleistocene’, in The Review of Archaeology, Vol. XVI, no. 1 (1995), pp. 9–15.
Derek Roe, ‘The Start of the British Lower Palaeolithic: Some Old and New Thoughts and Speculations’, in Lithics, Vol. XVI (1995), pp. 17–26.
Derek Roe, ‘Artefact Distributions and the British Earlier Palaeolithic’, in The English Palaeolithic Reviewed: Papers from a Day Conference Held at the Society of Antiquaries of London, 28 October 1994, edited by Clive Gamble and Andrew J. Lawson, Salisbury: Trust for Wessex Archaeology (1996), pp. 1–6.
Derek Roe, ‘Twenty Years of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Publications in BAR’, in British Archaeological Reports, Past Present and Future: Proceedings of a Conference Held in Oxford in June 1994 to Mark the Twentieth Anniversary of BAR, edited by David Davison and Martin Henig, Oxford: Tempvs Reparatvm (1996), pp. 21–23.
Birgitte Speake, ‘Caught in a Trap: Conservation and the Upper Gallery Project’, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 8 (May 1996), pp. 23–30.
Birgitte Speake, ‘Resins Ancient and Modern: SSCR Conference, 13–14 September 1995, University of Aberdeen’, SSCR Journal: The Quarterly News Magazine of the Scottish Society for Conservation and Restoration, Vol. VI, no. 4 (November 1995), pp. 7–8.
Kate White, ‘Material Culture Meets the Consumer: The Pitt Rivers, its Shop and the Public’, in Journal of Museum Ethnography, no. 8 (May 1996), pp. 31–40.
Donald Tayler, Embarkations: Ethnography and Shamanism of the Chocó Indians of Colombia (Pitt Rivers Museum Monograph No. 6), Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum (1996).
Grants and Donations
Four grants were received for the archive development at 64 Banbury Road. From the Museums & Galleries Commission: a capital grant of £7000. From the South Eastern Museums Service: a grant of £3000. From the University of Oxford’s Hulme Fund: a grant of £6000. From the University of Oxford: a minor works grant of £22,000.
The following other grants and donations were also received during the year. From the Leverhulme Trust: a grant of £48,699 for two years’ research on ‘Historical Change and Material Culture in Papua New Guinea’. From the Economic and Social Research Council: a grant of £61,746 for two years’ research on ‘Repatriation and Cross-Cultural Interests in Anthropological Archives’. From the Department of Trade and Industry’s Energy Design Advice Scheme: a grant of £3350 for an environmental study of the Museum court. From Southern Arts: a grant of £1500 towards the cost of commissioning Tim Hunkin to design and build a new collecting box for the Museum. From the W. H. Delafield Charitable Trust: a grant of £3000 for the care, maintenance, and display of the collections. From the British Council in Madrid (under its 1996 Acciones Integradas scheme for Anglo-Spanish projects): a grant of £2200 to Derek Roe and Professor M. J. Walker of Murcia University for the setting up of microwear research facilities in Professor Walker’s laboratory at Murcia and to study stone artefacts from Spanish Palaeolithic sites.
The James A. Swan Fund
This research fund, established out of a bequest by the late J. A. Swan, is for research work, either at the Museum or sponsored by the Museum, on the archaeological, historical, physical, and cultural nature of the Batwa, Bushmen, and Pygmy peoples and their prehistoric antecedents in Africa. The fund is administered by the Director of the Museum in consultation with the Professor of Biological Anthropology and the Professor of Social Anthropology. The balance as of 1 August 1995 was £36,984. A number of grants were made during the year. The balance as of 31 July 1996 was £44,760.
Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum
The Friends’ lectures for the year were: ‘Conservation in the Pitt Rivers Museum’, by Birgitte Speake (Head of Conservation at the Museum); ‘Crafts of Columbia’, by Linda Mowat (a Research Associate of the Museum); ‘Embroideries of the Afghan Amulet’, by Sheila Paine (author and traveller); ‘The Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine’, by Lorraine Da’Luz Vieira (a graduate student at the Museum and lecturer in traditional acupuncture); ‘African Vernacular Architecture: Ways of Living and Building in Sub-Saharan Africa’, by Paul Oliver (Lecturer at the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University); and ‘Alchemy through Art’, by Willem Hackmann (Museum of the History of Science, University of Oxford).
In May 1996, the Friends’ annual public lecture, the Beatrice Blackwood lecture, was given by Howard Morphy (Lecturer/Curator at the Museum), who has been a good friend to the Friends during his time at the Museum. Entitled ‘Hunting Art’, the lecture was all that a Beatrice Blackwood lecture should be. The Friends are most grateful to the Administrator of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry for allowing the use of the lecture theatre free of charge.
The Friends have been busy (and sociable) with other activities throughout the year. Following Sheila Paine’s talk to the Friends in December, there was a party in the Museum with mince pies and mulled wine. This also provided an opportunity to look at the exhibition Embroideries from Islamic Journeys, and to do some Christmas shopping. In March 1996 the Friends enjoyed a Saturday morning ‘behind-the-scenes’ visit to the documentation section (also known as ‘the Basement’) at the kind invitation of Jeremy Coote, Alison Petch, and Nicolette Meister. In May 1996 a party of thirty-two Friends and Museum staff visited the Larmer Tree Victorian pleasure gardens at Rushmore House (now Sandroyd School) near Salisbury. The gardens had been laid out by General Pitt Rivers in 1880 for the recreation of the local people, and Rushmore House was his home for twenty years. The Friends are most grateful to Michael Pitt Rivers and his staff, and also to the headmaster and his deputy at the school, for all their hospitality and help.
The AGM in June was held in the lecture room at 64 Banbury Road. It was announced that the membership stood at 223. The Chairman, Dick Repp, stepped down after four years at the helm, Geoffrey Harrison taking his place. Felicity Wood stood down after five years as Secretary/Membership Secretary but remains on the Council. Anne Phythian-Adams took over as Membership Secretary. Clare Austyn resigned from the Council earlier in the year when she moved to London, and Joyce Weil had taken over as Minutes Secretary, a post she retained. Joy Hendry also resigned as a member of the Council. After the business meeting the Friends had the opportunity to look at a collection of Chinese embroidery purchased by the Museum with help from the Friends in 1993. Refreshments were served and there was a showing of selected clips from documentary films featuring the Museum.
During the year the Friends paid for a binocular microscope (£600) for use in the Conservation section. They also paid for a further volume of The Dictionary of Art (£116) for the Balfour Library. In all, the Friends, as a group and as individuals, have given more than £1000 towards this very important resource; this is equivalent to approximately one quarter of the total price.
Friends continue to help with the Education Service, and some have joined the new training programme. There has also been work on library projects. Some Friends have been involved with a project to make supports and covers for objects undergoing conservation treatment. This year, on several occasions, Friends have helped to host groups of visitors to the Museum. They also helped with some National Music Month events and with the Open Evening at the Museum during Museums Week. There was also a Friends’ Information table in the Museum every afternoon during Museums Week.
The Newsletter continues to be co-ordinated by Sally Owen and edited by Janet Sharpe, and its only major problem seems to be lack of space. Liz Yardley has agreed to compile the back page and an ‘artists group’ has been formed to provide suitable illustrations. The Newsletter is now sent to all members of staff. It seems a good way to thank them for all their help and to keep them informed about what we are up to. Plans are now in hand for a Friends’ page on the Museum’s Website. Then the whole world will know what we are up to!
