North Somerset Museum celebrates community archaeology and rifles its stores

The Renaissance and HLF funded exhibition Treasures from the Earth opened at North Somerset Museum on 18th August - its third venue on its year-long tour of Somerset.                    

Volunteers have helped curator Jane Hill select pots, mosaics, metal artefacts and 2 amazing heads carved out of unidentified material (is it stone, bone, calcerous deposits from one of Mendip's caves?) to show visitors just how rich the local archaeology is.

Community archaeology is alive and well in North Somerset, with a plethora of groups sporting tongue twisting acronyms!  Do you belong to YCCCART, WESMART, CASNET or LAG? 

The finds from North Somerset are displayed alongside  artefacts from the stored collections of RAMM, the Royal Cornwall Museum, Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery are supplemented by items from Somerset museums: a Bronze Age hoard and Glastonbury ware bowl from the County Museum, a statuette of Mars from the Museum of South Somerset, an Anglo-Saxon sculpture from Glastonbury Abbey and a blue and white Chinese export plate from Wells. 

Volunteers are honing their skills in identifying pottery on 7th October at a workshop organised as part of the exhibition.  The event is free and open to anyone with an interest in the archaeology of North Somerset and the Mendips.  Booking is essential.

Please contact the museum for further details of this event and the museum opening times, telephone 01934 621028.

For further details about the Treasures from the Earth project please contact the project officer on 01823 274525.

Treasures from the Earth tour dates 2010 - 2011

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