For this post, I was a bit disappointed with the lack of information I really wanted to share for this one artifact that I found very interesting at the British Museum. The artifact in question that I wanted to share is this Annular Brooch which dates around the early Anglo-Saxon period (around 400 A.D). I’ve always been interested in this period, so naturally, I was curious about this artifact when I came across it. The museum number or accession is 1881, 1207.3, and was donated by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks (1826-1897) who worked as a curator and a collector at the museum. He donated other artifacts to the museum such as a collection of portraits which are registered 1895,0420.1 to 251. Where the artifact was found at an excavation site at King’s Field which is in Kent, England.
As for loans and projects; I couldn’t find any information on the loans and projects sadly. As for exhibits or “location”, on the British Museum’s Collection site – it is not listed to be on display nor is any history if it has ever been in an exhibit which I find to be a bit disappointing. For Conservation and Media, there’s really not that much information about the conservation of the Annular Brooch. I can only assume that if it’s not on display, it’s currently being archived and preserved with other artifacts that came from the same excavation site. For media, There’s only one photo in the database which is presented under a piece of cloth with protective brackets that are holding down the artifact. The image asset number is 1044314001 and the description of the image is “Full: Front – Silver annular brooch with pair of confronted bird or animal heads on ribbed hoop; part of pin-head of ribbed sheet remains.” As I said previously, I am a bit disappointed that the British Museum’s public collection database since the description(s) of the artifact is so vague and less informative than I expected. I can only assume that this artifact is over a thousand years old and thus the information about the artifact isn’t available anymore.
As for an item at my home, I don’t really know how to compare a personal item I have to the one I presented. The only item that I have that I’ve been very interested in is a video game artbook that my sister had gotten me for a belated Christmas gift. The video game artbook is called “The Art of Death Stranding” by Kojima Production and published by TitanBooks. I was gifted this book in mid-January 2023 even though the book’s first edition publication came out in January 2020 (ISBN: 9781789091564). The contents of the book contain art pieces and concept art of characters, locations, technology, weapons, and vehicles. There are no loans for the book that I was given (obviously). The only project I’ve been using the book for is to study art pieces during my free time. The only exhibit I have is in my personal library of books in my bedroom – though I sometimes bring it to my dining/study room once in a while. For conversation and media, I have been very careful with the book and its content since it’s pretty valuable to me due to it being a personal gift. Overall, I think this item is one of the few items I thought to share since it does have personal value to me even though it doesn’t compare to the Annular Brooch.
Question: Have you ever found an artifact in an online museum database that sparked your interest, and if so, what was it about that artifact that intrigued you?
Hey Hannah! Wow that is very cool post about this brooch! I would have dug deeper to find more information on it also!! I was struggling myself to even find something on an online database that I could somewhat compare to something in my home, I find it very interesting how far it dates back and that it even has good context on who the collector was. To answer your question yes I have, honestly quite a bit, since I started working at ANHC i was going the the media archives on a museum website and looking through old photographs of old homes; the thing that intrigued me was the different ways of how they had tanned and placed the fish they had caught on the homes, the piercing’s people had in photos that dated from 1800’s like how did you put that piece of ivory that looks like the size of a blueberry onto your skin? ahaha… and when I went to NMAI some replicas of Sugpiaq paddles were on display, I just thought to myself “I wish these could be brought back to Alaska, just for a visit”
While researching this history of African Americans in Alaska, I learned about the presence of the famed Buffalo Soldiers in Skagway in 1899 on the National Park Service database. Under the section “What Company L Left Behind” they have a few of the recovered artifacts from an excavation that took place at the site that I find very fascinating and worthy of more investigation. I am hoping within the next year to locate the collection and study them more.
Actually, for this assignment, there were a couple of items that I was interested in, but there wasn’t a database that I could find that would give me more information about the items. Most of the items were instrument related, at the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona. They have instruments from many regions of the word and I wanted to know how they got them, but I couldn’t find any information about it.