The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford have a campaign entitled My Ashmolean My Museum to raise the final part of its 61 million modernisation and expansion. Award-winning architect Rick Mather has designed a new building to replace all but the Grade I listed Cockerell building. His design will double the existing gallery space, allow environmental control, and create a dedicated Education Centre and conservation facilities. Working in partnership with designers Metaphor, the Ashmolean’s curatorial staff are planning a number of innovative new approaches to the display of the Museum’s objects. Rick Mather has been the creative force behind a number of…
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A massive haul of 824 gold coins from the Iron Age have been discovered in the United Kingdom. The coins were found using a metal detector buried in a field near Wickham Market in Suffolk. They were enclosed within a broken pottery jar and had a value when in circulation estimated at todays value of between 500,000 and 1m. The coins dated from 40BC to AD15 according to the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service and is the largest find of Iron Age coins since 1849. It is thought that the majority of the coins were produced by the tribe of…
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Interesting conference debating the inter-relationship between archaeology and the tourism industry. Details below: Organizer: Dr. Noel B. Salazar (University of Leuven) In a bid to obtain a piece of the lucrative global tourism pie, destinations worldwide are trying to play up their local distinctiveness. This is sometimes done by borrowing from traditional ethnology an ontological and essentialist vision of exotic cultures, conceived as static entities with clearly defined characteristics. Ideas of old-style colonial anthropology and archaeology objectifying, reifying, homogenizing, and naturalizing peoples are widely (mis)used in international tourism by individuals and organizations staking claims of identity and cultural belonging on…
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A 14th Century BC Egyptian sculpture, the Head of Amenhotep III smuggled out in the early 1990s has finally been returned to Egypt. The head was smuggled out by Jonathan Tokeley-Perry who was convicted to a six year custodial sentence in 1997 of illegal smuggling. It is known that the head was diguised as a reproduction before being shipped to the US via Switzerland and the UK. Dr Zahi Hawass was instrumental in bringing the head back to Egypt in a complex case involving two separate criminal proceedings in the UK and US. Karen Sanig, Head of Art Law at…
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Not been to Egypt and looking to go away somewhere…. After 2 weeks of freezing cold weather here in London and it seems everyone either having a cold or flu this photo should point you in the right direction. Thanks Sandro!