Since archiving got underway, we have organised craft events for the public to see our collections and get creative inspired by ancient objects. Here Morgan wraps up these events so far.
Welcome back to the project diary! It’s been a little while and we’ve been busy archiving the thousands of finds from the HS1 dig – read about that here. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that at CSI we often ask why bother keeping archives? A big part of the answer to that question is sharing the amazing collection with people and making sure that the public know it’s there for anyone to visit, use for research, or get involved as a volunteer.
HISTORY IN THE FORUM
The Forum shopping centre is fairly unique in having several different history groups dotted among the high street shops. Just over from us are the Heritage Hub, and CSI is of course now sharing a space with Sittingbourne Heritage Museum, who have relocated from East Street.
The craft workshops are therefore part of an exciting range of opportunities just in the Forum to learn about local history and see amazing collections. Remember CSI is open Mondays and Thursdays so why not pop in during the shopping trip to see some unique ancient objects, from jewellery to swords.
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN MAKING?
We’ve been making clay beads inspired by the colourful Anglo-Saxon beads found along the HS1 route. Made from glass, amber, and amethyst, the original beads are in great condition as their colours don’t fade. You can see some of the best examples even when we’re closed in the window display.
We were also inspired by the many Roman artefacts in the collection. Among these are lots of coins, some silver and some copper, which show the different emperors on so give us a great insight into the dates they were used. We designed our own coins, learned to write our birthdays in Roman numerals, and made colourful laurel wreaths (the leafy headband that showed off an emperor’s status).
FAVOURITE FIND OF THE WEEK
For the Roman coins workshop, we dug out some of our favourite coins – Roman and otherwise. As the HS1 track unearthed objects from all sorts of eras, we have coins from the Roman Empire in England (43-410 AD), the Anglo-Saxon era (410-1066) and reign of King John (1199-1216), all the way up to King George III (1760-1820)!
The condition varies widely – some coins have had conservation cleaning, such as this silver Roman coin – so that the image and text can clearly be made out. Others have rusted and worn away so working out when and where it’s from can be a bit trickier.
With every archaeological object comes a note of its site code and context number – or, the dig site it came from, and where specifically on that site. My favourite thing about all these coins, there are often tens of coins with the same context number, meaning they were found in the same small area. But, the coins themselves can be totally different, with some Roman and Anglo-Saxon coins found side by side! Can you have a guess at how they ended up there together? (Answer in the caption!)
(Above question’s answer: The coins were likely thrown into a wishing well or pool! Over hundreds of years people had been throwing coins in the same spot.)
We will be working on Mondays and Thursdays so please do drop by to see what we’re working on, and keep an eye on our Facebook or Events page to find out about upcoming workshops.
CSI: Sittingbourne 