Salmond makes a move on chessmen - a serious effort at repatriation? Or is he coughing loudly to cover up the Trump incident?

The Guardian are running a Lewis Chessmen story (this has the hallmarks of a runner) and point out that it was a Scotsman who purchased the Elgin marbles in...

Our Chessmen were taken, but Scotland is heaving with stolen art.

The fight to reclaim national treasures is fought the world over, and is rarely successful

Ian Jack
Saturday January 12, 2008
The Guardian

National causes can be made of small things - one thinks of Jenkins' Ear - but few can have had such a charming and witty source as the collection of small objects known as the Lewis Chessmen that have since the mid-19th century delighted visitors to the British Museum. The chessmen inspired the stories of Noggin the Nog; Harry and Ron Weasley played a game with replicas in the first Potter film. People take a great shine to them: the queens with their hands to their cheek looking so wise (or so bored), the wardens or rooks furiously biting their shields (the "berserkers", the soldiers of Odin).

Now they have been registered as a political grievance. Scotland's first minister wants them back. On December 19, Alex Salmond made a speech outlining the Scottish government's proposals to preserve the Gaelic language, and containing the following two sentences: "I find it utterly unacceptable that the Lewis Chessmen are scattered around Britain in a bizarre parody of the Barnett formula. And you can be assured that I will continue campaigning for a united set of Lewis Chessmen in an independent Scotland." This isn't quite the same thing as Captain Robert Jenkins showing off his pickled ear to the House of Commons in 1738, prompting a war against Spain that lasted nine years. Nevertheless, the war of the Lewis Chessmen threatens to run and run.

The comparison with the Barnett formula, which sets the level of Scottish subvention from the UK Treasury, is unclear, but the pieces are not "scattered around". The British Museum holds 67 chessmen and the National Museum of Scotland 11. They were made from walrus ivory in the 12th century, most probably in Norway. Chess had reached Norse civilisation not long before, after its slow journey from India to southern Europe via Persia and Arabia. Europe had humanised the abstract form of the Oriental pieces, even feminised one of them by turning the vizier into a queen, and military Christianity had replaced princes or "leapers" with bishops with mitres and croziers. To quote the excellent monograph written by a British Museum curator, James Robinson, the chessmen are "unique survivals ... no other visual record survives that documents so perfectly the full range and variety of arms and armour used in 12th-century combat". The likeliest speculation is that these beautifully crafted luxuries were on their way to princes or traders in the Norse-held territories of Ireland or the Isle of Man when, for reasons unknown, they were buried in the sand dunes of western Lewis.

Complete story here.

Stonehenge Lidar animation available from Wessex Archaeology

"We have recently finished creating a short animation for the exhibition “Making History: Antiquaries In Britain, 1707–2007” at the Royal Academy in London. The three minute video demonstrates “Stonehenge revealed through digital technologies”.

It incorporates a fly-through of the Stonehenge landscape in 3D, based upon Environment Agency LIDAR (airborne 3D scanning) data, high resolution panoramas, and a new animation of the prehistoric dagger and axe carvings on Stone 53 at Stonehenge itself, from data collected by Archaeoptics Ltd.

During production of the animation, we turned the LIDAR data into a solid 3D model of whole landscape surrounding Stonehenge. Aerial tours of the most famous sites and monument groups were animated in HD (720i) resolution. What is exciting is that much of the upstanding archaeology, from well-preserved barrows to the subtle earthworks of prehistoric field systems, are clearly visible."

More (including video) at Wessex Archaeology

Hadrian Exhibition at the British Museum

British Museum announces major exhibition on Roman Emperor Hadrian and iconic bronze head of Hadrian to tour Britain
24th July – 26th October 2008

Following on from the unprecedented success of ‘The First Emperor’, the British Museum’s major exhibition for 2008 will focus on another great world leader, the Roman Emperor Hadrian. Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, supported by BP, will be the first major show dedicated solely to the life and legacy of Hadrian who ruled the Roman Empire at its height between AD117 – 138. Bringing together over 180 loans from 31 countries – from Italy to Georgia, Israel to Newcastle – the exhibition will display dramatic sculpture, exquisite bronzes and architectural fragments, many of which will be seen for the first time in the UK. The show also includes objects from the Museum’s own collection including the famous Vindolanda tablets from Hadrian’s Wall. Following First Emperor, the exhibition will be the second to be held in the Museum’s historic Round Reading Room, the dome of which has been compared to the Pantheon in Rome, one of Hadrian’s architectural masterpieces.

More of this story from finds.org

ADS release Later Prehistoric Pottery Collection Database

How many later prehistoric pottery collections are there in England? This simple question was the basis for a survey funded by English Heritage at the instigation of the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group. The goal of the survey was to create a register of all the collections which date between the Late Bronze Age and the Late Iron Age, c 1000 BC-AD 50, and to complement this with a bibliography of published collections.

From January 1996 to October 1998, a team of 21 surveyors from across the country was engaged in the desktop recording of as many collections as they could find. This recording was conducted using a single-page proforma which requested the following information about each collection: date of record, survey area, name of collection, county, parish, NGR, SMR, Scheduled Ancient Monuments code, type of site using the RCHME Thesaurus of Monument Types (1995), current location of collection, final curatorial location, method of recovery (excavation, fieldwalking, evaluation, pipeline, causal pick-up, watching brief, other, no information available), size of collection, date range, and whether the collection had been published. Museums, units, amateur groups and individual collectors were contacted by the local surveyor.

Go to ADS catalogue

Hadrian heads out...

A bronze head of Roman emperor Hadrian which has not left the British Museum since it was fished out of the River Thames almost 200 years ago will travel to both ends of Hadrian's Wall as part of an exhibition about the legendary leader.

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, at the British Museum, will be the first major show dedicated solely to the life and legacy of the man who ruled the Roman empire at its height.

The summer show has contemporary resonance - Hadrian's first act as emperor was to recognise that there had been imperial overreach and withdraw Roman troops from Mesopotamia, modern day Iraq.

Story from icScotland

PAS Talk in Bruton Museum, Somerset

Bruton Museum, Dovecote Building, 26 High Street, Bruton, Somerset.

Starts at 7.30pm, to last c. 45 minutes.

No entry charge but people are encouraged to give £3 which includes a glass of wine or alterative refreshment.

The Dovecote Building
26 High Street
Bruton
BA10 0AA
Somerset
England

Contact details
General information (Tel) : 01749 812851
General information (Fax) : 01749 812851

Colin Renfrew on the threat to the PAS

"One of the unsung successes of this government is the Portable Antiquities Scheme, which records archaeological objects found by members of the public and makes that information available for all on its online database. The scheme recently recorded its 300,000th find. But all that is now under threat, an unintended consequence of this year's comprehensive spending review by which the government fixes its funding for the next three years.

Although the spending review proved to be much better for museums and the heritage than was feared - a tribute to the negotiating ability of James Purnell, the new secretary of state - the Portable Antiquities Scheme comes under the aegis of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, the one organisation that was singled out for cuts in the spending review, as its grant is being reduced by 25% in real terms over the next three years.

Since it was created by Chris Smith seven years ago, MLA has had a chequered history. It has been through three changes of name and is now on its fourth chief executive, hardly a sign of a stable organisation. It has yet to convince the museums, libraries and archives, for which it was supposed to devise overarching policies, that it has a useful role. Its biggest programme is Renaissance in the Regions, which channels government money (£45m this year) into a network of 42 hub museums. The Renaissance programme was protected in this spending review"

Piece continued in Guardian Unlimited

Roman lamp discovered near Tadcaster

A RARE 2,000-year-old Roman lamp has been bought by the Yorkshire Museum after it was discovered in North Yorkshire. (Full story from the York Press)

The copper lamp - depicting the face of a wild, violent and drunken nymph - in the shape of a female head was found by a metal detectorist near Tadcaster.

It was then bought by the York museum, being one of only a handful ever discovered in Britain and in brilliant condition. The head is likely to be that of a Maenad, literally translated as raving ones.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Maenads were portrayed as frenzied, drunken and violent worshippers of Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of mystery, wine and intoxication. Liz Andrews-Wilson, finds liaison officer for North and East Yorkshire, said: "This was an incredible find by metal detectorists.

"The lamp is in amazing condition and it is very rare to find one in Britain. It was common at the time for such lamps to show these maenad figures. They were used by Romans as an example of what not to become."

Charnwood Museum Displays Some of Britain's Earliest Metal Objects

Some of the earliest metal objects ever found in Britain have gone on display for the first time at Charnwood Museum in a new display running until March 28 2008. (Full story from The 24 Hour Museum)

Neolithic and Bronze Age jewellery, Roman glass, and Anglo-Saxon garnets are among the archaeological treasures on show in a makeover of the displays, which Leicestershire Museum Service’s Archaeology team worked on over the Christmas holidays.

Rare jewellery, newly acquired by Leicestershire Museum Service, has been put on public display for the first time. These treasures include late Neolithic jewellery from 4,000 years ago
- among the earliest metal objects ever found in Britain.

3,000-year-old Bronze Age bracelets and Anglo-Saxon garnet pendants dating back to 1,400 years, found in Shepshed and Sapcote, are also on display.

A selection of pieces from the Bronze Age prehistoric burial mounds excavated near Cossington is also featured, including an extremely rare early Bronze Age bead necklace."

Contact details
General information (Tel) : 01509 233754
General information (Fax) : 01509 268140
E-mail : charnwood@leics.gov.uk
Website : www.leics.gov.uk/museums/charnwood/index.htm
Website : www.charnwood.gov.uk/leisure/heritage.html