Garry's Blog

  Sir John Soane's Museum I lived in London for a year and a half in ages past and while all sorts of cultural and other institutions made up our schedule of weekend visits, Sir John Soane's Museum was not on the list - one I had never heard of. My ignorance was corrected from somewhere - almost certainly one source was reading about Belzoni and his removal of Pharoah Seti I's sarcophagus from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings and its arrival in the museum. Probably also through Country Life , I became aware of the nature of the museum and the presence there of two series of paintings by William Hogarth, A Rakes Progress and An Election , both often reproduced in books on British art.  The Museum A work visit in the 90's took me London and a spare day to the district - my mother collected Halcyon Days enameled boxes so I visited their outlet shop to buy her one before going on to the nearby Museu m -  13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3BP.  The Halcyon Days sh...

  For Museums. I love museums – there that is out. I have been associated with them all my life – as a donor to at least five, associated with their research with three, published in their Records and as a Board Member for one. I love that they use physical objects to tell a story. They can have art galleries and libraries and archives attached – they are often a good fit - but none are necessary. It is physical objects that are their heart. Their essential nature lies around those objects. They need a building to protect them – from decay, theft – and that building itself has to be protected, from fire, decay, earthquake – a suitable place for guarding taonga – treasures. The collections need to be catalogued, by someone who knows enough to adequately describe them and they need to be available for experts to study and, within reason, to anyone else who develops an interest in them. A Museum needs its public interface, through displays that engage its public. It does not...

  On a visit today I was taken by an Egyptian revival style piano. I have amongst my books a Taschen Description de l’Egypt . Being Taschen it is of course just the illustrations rather than the full contents including original nine volumes of text. See Description de l'Égypte - Wikipedia . Still a delight albeit at reduced size. It was of course the eventual output of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, accompanied by his savants, to explore, map and transform Egypt with French enlightenment.   Today I was at the Waiheke Musical Museum on Waiheke Island, the museum sometimes known after its founders as the Whittaker Museum. A great living history show by the now proprietors talking and playing on the many historic keyboard instruments there. One particularly took my fancy – an Egyptian Revival piano, pictured above. Here is their page on the instrument: Upright Piano – Egyptian - Waiheke Musical Museum . The performer on the piano said it was a rather ordinary instrument m...

  Part Two -Getting involved in Archaeology as an Interest.   Part One looked at archaeology as a profession to get into, this looks at other aspects for people with other ambitions.   The early 19 th C origins of archaeology were from a time when there were no archaeologists – the people that pioneered it were often trained in other fields and many of them were employed in other fields. Now the field seems to be dominated by professionals, with a long path of training and experience needed to become one (See Part One).   Is there now no role for those with an interest in archaeology?   There is.   An Invitation to Archaeology:   “We are all archaeologists now.” ( The Archaeological Imagination . Michael Shanks)   If we have an interest in archaeology, it is because we have been exposed to archaeology in some form. Through that exposure we can start to see that the hand of past people is still with us in the physical world...

  People were asking - how does one go about getting to be an archaeologist – or at least involved in archaeology? Let’s deal with being an archaeologist working or being employed as such.   Part One - The Professional Professional archaeologists in New Zealand generally follow these pathways: ·          University (research and teaching-based) archaeologists. ·          Heritage or Cultural Resource Management archaeologists. ·          Museum (curatorial) archaeologists. University-based Archaeologists These are primarily academic or technical roles based in tertiary institutions. Most are involved in teaching as well as research. This involves archaeological excavations, laboratory work. The number of roles is limited in New Zealand. Heritage or Cultural Resource Management archaeologists . Most archaeologists employed in New Zealand ...

  Quotes for Archaeologists I used to have these in the page formatting of this blog - but it didn't work on iPhones and the ilk so took it down. Here they are as a post instead.