Objects can be made from a single type of material such as vessels made from wooden or pottery, or coins made from metals. Others can be made from a variety of different materials combined together, for example, shoes made from leather with a metal buckle. It is possible, therefore, that in the table below a single object might appear under 2 or more headings. In some instances the material from which the object is made is unknown (this is true for one in ten of the objects in the second collection, but a lesser proportion in the founding collection). The first table gives the number of objects that are categorised as containing each wide variety of material, the second how important that material is in the collection based on numbers of objects that contain it.

 

Material

Founding collection

2nd collection

UK founding collection

UK 2nd collection

No. of objects

Animal

2122

1179

346

154

Bird

147

68

9

0

Metal

4006

6702

835

2037

Plant

5093

2308

256

129

Pottery

4254

4257

3412

908

Stone

5236

2979

2367

821


Material

Founding collection ranking

2nd collection ranking

UK founding collection ranking

UK 2nd collection ranking

 

Animal

5

5

4

4

Bird

6

6

6

6

Metal

4

1

3

1

Plant

2

4

5

5

Pottery

3

2

1

2

Stone

1

3

2

3


It will be seen that stone (mostly used to make archaeological stone tools) is the most important material in the founding collection and metal is the most important material in the second collection (mostly used in making weapons, tools etc). The most important material in the founding material UK collections is pottery (mostly, as we have seen elsewhere from archaeological pottery sherds). The UK artefacts in the second collection reflect the overall collection by being made most often from metal.

AP, 1 June 2010

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