Update from the Curator
It has been a very busy and hectic sixth months in the Curator role since the last update! I have been busy managing our growing volunteer pool working on a variety of projects; the continued cataloguing of our collections, and increasing the visibility of the society through research projects.
[fg]jpg|Fig 1: Isabelle Diggle (Kent FLO) and Jon Whitmore (Treasure Assistant) deliver a lecture for the Cur8 group|Image[/fg]
In January the society was pleased to be asked to take on the running of Maidstone Museum’s Cur8 youth group (What is CUR8? | Maidstone Museum). We are now at the half-way point of the year and the work has been an absolute joy for the whole KAS team as we have led sessions on zooarchaeology & the Portable Antiquities Scheme with the Kent Finds Liaison Officer and Treasure Assistant, a hands- on pottery making workshop with Dr Corinne Montenon, and designing a tour to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Lives in Our Landscape Gallery. Places are still available to join with all details available on the Maidstone Museum website.
Work has continued on our enigmatic [possible] witch bottle found on the Isle of Thanet. The bottle, found during work in the basement of a residential house and buried upside down in a concrete floor beside the former fireplace, has proved to be an intriguing object.
It has now undergone a plethora of scientific study including X-rays, Cone Beam CT, and MicroCT as well as most recently Spectroscopy where we hope to analyse for trace elements of urine. This would help to cement the case that it is indeed a witch bottle.
We have had an increasing number of student work experience placements with us over the last 6 months. These students have worked on a variety of archaeological and archival projects with Society Archivist Craig and myself. In total these placements have seen around 64hrs of volunteering with several more placements due to take place in late June – Early July.
Cataloguing of the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit (KARU) collection is continuing apace with our regular volunteers working on adding each boxes content information to a database. This will allow us to transfer the archive data to a Collection Management System (CMS) which we hope to seek funding for.
Our partnership working has also continued to grow with meetings held with Maidstone Museum, The Royal Engineers Museum, Museum of London’s Coasts in Mind Project, The Faversham Creek Trust, and Kent County Council. We hope to see these projects bare fruit in the very near future so please do stay tuned.
Our social media platforms continue to grow as we share more of the wonderful archaeology and history of Kent, and the activities of our affiliate members and partners. Our facebook page now has 3880 followers, our Instagram is at 422 followers, our Bluesky account 417, and our TikTok 1,052! If you haven’t followed us on any of these please do search for Kent Archaeological Society and give us a follow.
From the 24th May – 1st June the society ran its ‘Uncovering Life in Front Brents’ project in partnership with The Faversham Creek Trust, Faversham Society Archaeological Research Group, and the Coasts in Mind Project. It was a fantastic project with over 300 volunteers joining us for a “hands-on” experience of archaeology. You can read a full breakdown of the project later in this issue.
If you have an object which you’ve discovered or would like to learn more about volunteering with the archaeological collections of the society please do send me an email at: andy.ward@kentarchaeology.org.uk
[fg]jpg|Fig 2: The Ramsgate Witch Bottle undergoing spectroscopy at Kings College London (image courtesy of Kings College London)|Image[/fg]
[fg]jpg|Fig 3: KAS excavations at Front Brents, Faversham|Image[/fg]