Students showcase excavations' 'finds'



Artifacts found as a result of East Oxford Archeology Project (Archeox) excavations at Bartlemas Leper Hospital and Minchery Priory were put on display at Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum in mid October. The one-day exhibition was the result of a collaboration between Archeox and year-one students from Oxford Brookes School of Architecture, who designed the exhibit displays.

The students created the installations out of a wide range of materials, many of which were recycled, and a number of which had moving parts. Each installation had a theme centring on the particular archaeological artifact on display.

Medieval coins were used in money-related concepts; lead musket balls from the 17th century in a chain-operated firing sequence, and a prehistoric flint arrow head in a 'bow and arrow' sculpture.

Jane Harrison, Project Officer for Archeox, along with several project volunteers, worked with Brookes' students in workshops leading up to the exhibit, which took place on 19th October.

Highlights included:

  • a medieval bone tuning peg which was mounted on a working 'musical box' telling the story of medieval music;
  • a complex and delicate wooden sculpture with articulated hands reaching out to each other with a small bell from Bartlemas as the connecting find,
  • a bone toggle holding together a net woven out of supermarket plastic bags,
  • a rotating scenery installation with four stages of the story of the Minchery Priory, encompassing a decorated medieval floor tile, and a metal swirl expressing the movement of medieval spinning.

 

The students also came up with innovative use of video, perspective, light, mirrors and glass.

Said David Griffiths, head of the East Oxford Archaeology Project 'Thanks go to the Brookes students, whose creativity and enthusiasm were tremendous, and to their tutor Jane Anderson.'

Over 240 visitors visited the Pitt Rivers' Clore Gallery, where the exhibition was held. Though originally intended as a 'one day only' event, all those involved felt that the event was successful and popular enough to merit a repeat at some point in the future.

 

 

Published 3 November 2013