Life as the KAS Curator

Description: Talk by Andy Ward for Studying History and Archaeology in Lympne (SHAL).

Transcript: I'm Andy Ward for those of you who I haven't met. Uh I am the curator for the Kent Archaeological Society. I've actually now been in post just over two years, which is slightly terrifying. I started in February 2023. Um, but a bit background before that, I was working for the East Sussex Historic Environment Record as their HR assistant, which is quite a mouthful of a title, but basically it is the county's uh planning and archaeological monument record. Um, so when field work happens like yours here, it gets recorded with the county's historic environment record. Um, so obviously yours will eventually end up on the Kent historic environment record. So that's kind of where I started. Um, I did my undergrad at the University of Kent in ancient history. And last year, while I was also doing all the work for the KAS, I also completed my masters in heritage from the University of Wales, Trinity, St. David, because I've decided to put all the big words in this presentation. Um, so I also have a masters in heritage, which covers all sorts of things from museums, um, to pseudo archaeology, which is my specialty, uh, to field work. And I've also on and off since 2018 volunteered with the Kent finds liaison officer who records stray and metal detected objects from across the county. Um so I've recorded hundreds of archaeological finds from every single period which put me in quite goodstead for getting this job. So for those of you who haven't heard of the Kent Archaeological Society, just a quick run through. We were founded in 1857. So shortly after Surrey who were founded in 1854 and Sussex who beat us in 1846. So we are the third oldest. Uh now in the 21st century we are a charity incorporated organization uh with our aim of being to bring the past to the present to everyone. Uh we are run by a board of trustees with a group of paid members of staff uh which I sit as part of and we are based as Rosemary said in Maidstone at the Maidstone Community Support Center. Um we also have 5,000 objects from our collection housed at Maidstone Museum. Um and they are housed there on long-term loan. They've been there since 1858 when the museum opened. Originally it was the Charles Museum and then it became Maidstone Museum. And that predominantly includes sites like Sar Bifrons and Limage which are key Anglo-Saxon probably some of the most key Anglo-Saxon sites in the county of Kent. Um we also cover the historic boundaries of Kent which includes some areas of London and the Medway area. So we we cover Kent as it was in 1857 when we were established. Um we then have another 10,000 odd objects give or take uh predominantly from our own fieldwork um which the society looks after at Marshham Street and where I have a team of volunteers who help me with that work. But we are as I say primarily a voluntary organization. Uh we have around 1,300 members uh and many more who follow us on social media from as far away as Australia which is always nice. So what is a curator? So the Oxford English dictionary has it as a keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection. So you have a museum curator, an art curator, travel curator, which is a bit of a weird one. Um, but what does this mean in the 21st century? So it it has kind of changed how a curator is viewed. Predominantly, it was always about you knew your subject. back to front you were the specialist in your field. Now it's a much more multifaceted profession. Um so we including myself manage, interpret and present collections of cultural significance for the benefit of the public. Uh beyond traditional museum and gallery roles, curators are increasingly involved in shaping narratives, enhancing accessibility, and fostering audience engagement in both physical and digital spaces. So that's quite a big key part of my role being the curator for the Kent Archaeological Society. We do sit outside of that typical museum setting. We are neither an archaeological unit nor a museum. Um we kind of straddle both spheres which means that my work covers everything from traditional curation of our collections to running all of our social media channels uh including Tik Tok now. um but also doing your traditional public outreach like I am today talking to you but running excavations uh dealing with and working alongside schools and other organizations to promote the archaeology and history of Kent. So many curators now are responsible for numerous different subject specialisms. Um out as I said outside of national museums where you may have a curator of Roman archaeology or Greek archaeology. Um outside of these museums there is a growing trend in replacing subject specialist cur curators with generalists uh responsible for multiple collection disciplines which is kind of where my role kind of sits. And that came from a really interesting report by art insight on the 21st century creator. If anyone is interested, I'm more than happy to send that link round. It does make for some interesting reading about how challenged many museums are with everrestricting budgets and ever growing remitts which does make things quite a challenge. So as I mentioned, our collections are rather uh large. Our collections began practically from day one. The idea of the founding members of the society was that every member of the Kas would go out to their particular area of the county or their land um and collect antiquities and bring them back in order to form a museum of Kent archaeology and history. And this was predominant because the founding members of the society were the landed gentry, clergy, soldiers, uh, antiquarians, often from very rich, very moneyed backgrounds. So, they had the land and the time to go around and collect these things. Uh, thankfully, that's not the way things work anymore. Otherwise, I'd be inundated with more and more stuff. So most of our um material now has come to us through requests from members when they've sadly passed on. They may deposit material with us. Uh we do get the occasional offer of a donation where something potentially hasn't been able to go to one of the traditional museums. Um, for those of you who came along to the Kent Archaeological Society Fieldwork Forum back in March, you would have heard me wax lyrical about how the fact that all museums are full and struggling to take anything in. Um, which often means that people will come to us as the county society hoping that we will take something in rather than it being risked uh being lost to the county. So our early collections are as I said are predominantly housed in Maidstone Museum. Um and these form around 5,000 objects mostly from sites like Sar and Bifrons and Limage. So Sar and Bifrons are Anglo-Saxon cemeteries on the aisle of Thanet. They were excavated in the early or late mid to late 19th century. Um so huge amount of grave assemblages. um some very pretty swords, one of which I will talk about later. Um but we also have the limage early medieval collection which was excavated in uh by Alan Walhurst in the 1950s. So it's not the Gabbor Thomas 2013 excavation which some of you may be familiar with. Um this is the 1950s excavation that was done just north of that site. So we hold some of their their remains and material as well. And then most recently we have purchased the Ozenel Anglo-Saxon collection which some of you may have seen my talk on. If not happy to come back and do that talk again. Um that is we purchased that in 2022 and it's about 1,700 objects of early medieval material. Again deriving from a site that suffered what uh gets kind of described as collections trauma. particularly the early 19th century sites that have been dug across Kent are done in such a way by antiquarians um not up to modern standards. So it's quite tricky to place where particular finds may have come from are they from SAR are they from Bifrons which grave have they originated from which obviously makes publishing those sites quite tricky. Um, as I said, we do get quite a lot of material donated to us, but we also have a lot of material which has come from society fieldwork both in more modern times like our Le's Court estate excavations where we've been digging outside of Favversham uh since 2018. some of which I've brought some material with me today for you to have a look at. But also we have uh excavation material from the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s deriving from people like Alec Miles who was the former um membership secretary for the society. Arthur Harrison who was also our former secretary and um vice chair as well at one point who was digging predominantly around Rochester. Um and Alec Mars was digging predominantly around cooling and the north Kent marshes. So we have 11 35 liter boxes filled with Roman pottery that hasn't been fully cataloged or well has now been cataloged but it hasn't fully been assessed. So there's going to be a really quite important resource there once we can start actually broadcasting that we have it and what to do with it. Um, but we also have the Lower Medway Archaeological Res archaeology research group collection. As I said, bringing in all the long words today. Um, which they have a number of paleolithic handaxes, some of which are really quite impressive. Um, and so my role as curator involves looking after these collections, ensuring that, for example, their humidity is set between 30 and 35%. Which for those of you who had to hear me constantly moan about it for metal work, uh, and still do, um, is really important for the preservation of archeological metal work, particularly iron. Iron will rust the moment it goes anywhere beyond 55% humidity. So, it's really important in keeping the storage room and having a very large supply of silica gel. H I was just reheating my silica gel this morning in my oven much to my wife's annoyance uh because she was wondering is it going to kill me and it's not as long as I airate it properly. Um so as I mentioned the vast majority of our collections um for the society come from our early medieval uh cemetery sites. So Sar Bifrons, Limage and Osenol. We have finds excavated from early med graves, early medieval graves at Stouting just outside Canterbury. Um, which we have a sixth century uh female burial assemblage which we've managed to purchase through the treasure act uh which I'll explain in a bit more detail. Um so and as I said a lot of these sites have suffered from collections trauma. Um so one really nice find is this uh pommel up at the top here. So this is from the top of a early medieval probably sixth century uh sword from Sar. It was found at grave 91. And you'll have to take my word for it that does potentially carry a runic inscription on it. I know it doesn't look like it at the moment, but in person you can just about make out one or two letters and a number of experts have looked at it. There's an article in in the most recent edition of Archaeological Caniana which will have gone out to members um which you can read from professor John Hines who's kind of the eminent runic specialist in Britain. Um, but it has been looked at previously in the early 20th century as well with every single one of them arguing a different case for which letters are on there. Unfortunately, it has degraded slightly which makes reading the runic inscription if it's there um quite tricky. But it is currently and this is something that I'm quite happy to say that it's it's out there now is up with Cardiff University um undergoing conservation and scientific analysis with their MA conservation students. And so they're getting experience with really quite significant archaeology that predom you know a lot of the time they're never going to come across because we don't frequently dig up early medieval cemetery collections anymore. Um but also if they manage if the laser analysis that they hope to do works then we'll be able to get a really nice view of whether any runic inscription does still survive. Um, if you do read Professor Hines's article, you'll see him make mention that the Rooney inscription that he thinks he can see on there, if it is the one that's on there, it's one of the earliest examples we have from at least the county, if not further a field. So, we do have really nationally, if not internationally, significant objects in our collection that we're now finally able to start actually discussing and talking about and getting research carried out for them. Um, which I'm hoping by beginning of next year, we'll have a bit more information on this and we'll have a much more in-depth article uh going forward to the next volume of archaeological. Um, for those of you who don't know what Archaeological Caniana is, because I realize I'm talking about it and some of you may not have heard of it. It is the society's annual publication. Uh, it's peer-reviewed. Uh, issue or volume 145 has just become open access. So now anybody can get hold of it even if you're not a member. If you are a member guy, I think as rep you will have got the email with the password which you can pass to members of shall um which will allow you to get digital access to the most recent edition which is volume 146 which is where uh this is described. So if you want to read it, it is on the members area of the website. If you would like to become an individual member, please do consider it. Um, we now allow you to pay by direct debit, which equates to about £3 pound30, which is far less than a cup of coffee, which is not bad. So, our other collections, um, apologies for the blurred photos. These are from the museum database that Maidston Museum has that I've downloaded because I didn't get the time to actually go in and find these in the store and get them out and take proper photographs. But they are some very nice Roman brooches um which we unfortunately didn't find at limb but it would be this kind of brooch that I would want to see but we didn't find any of this particular type but our other collections. So, as I mentioned, we have about 5,000 objects in Maidstone Museum. And according to the most recent download that I got from Maidstone Museum, who very um competently look after our collection in the museum, um we have 814 records relating to non early medieval objects. So it shows out of 5,000 only around 800 of those are not early medieval. Now some of that will be because there are some which uh aren't dated and could be medieval or could be Roman or could be Iron Age. Um but it just shows how much of the heavy focus there was on the early medieval collection for Kent. It's just the nature of the county that we are in. The founding members of the society were very interested at the time in the 19th century with founding myths for Kent and the peoples who came across from the continent and formed the county in the fifth late fourth fifth and sixth centuries AD. Um so yeah these cover other periods so Roman um Iron Age and this includes coins, jewelry, pottery, weaponry, building material. We have some lovely uh pieces of the leads priary architectural stonework which we don't have on display because they're really heavy. We we have some there are some on display in the new lives in our landscape gallery which I'll chat about. Um but yeah, we have some really nice objects that it would be lovely to get more broadcast of. Um but that requires timing and money and space. Um, so they have mates museum have done an excellent job curating our our collections there. Now that I'm a full-time member of staff, so prior to me, uh, the curator of the society was always a voluntary position. There was an honorary curator, which meant that they had one hand tied behind their back in terms of actually having the capacity and the time to go out and do things like talks and working on our collections. Um whereas as a paid member of staff it is my role and responsibility to actually make our collections more accessible. Um whether that is physically or digitally as I mentioned and what I am hoping to start doing is to start actually researching more of our collection that is in Maidstone Museum and to disentangle it from Maidstone Museum's collection. H they have about 25,000 British archaeology objects. So ours is only a very small portion that we'd like to separate into a separate area of the store so that I can much more easily get research projects carried out, do temporary exhibitions and displays and that sort of thing. So research and experimentation. Um so as I mentioned we have this lovely thing. Um, so this is a replica which Alexander Reed, who you can see in the bottom of the picture there, uh, created based on K-828, which is an early medieval possible ring sword from grave 88 at SAR. You can just about see the remnants of what we have left uh which is just the iron blade and the silver um hilt guard um on the blade which has a gap in between where there would have been organic uh kind of an organic spacer. Um so what Alex did is he took measured photographs and used the X radioraphs which are held by Maidstone Museum um to make a very accurate replica of what this sword would have looked like. Um he's used uh bone horn uh cow horn for the lower spacer. He's used cow bone for the upper spacer and cherrywood for the grip which would have traditionally been h had something like rawhide or leather wrapped around it. And then he's used uh recycled cutlery to cast his silver hilt guards because we don't normally have that much silver running around. But this is a really nice example of getting a student. He was formerly of University of Kent and formerly our KS student ambassador. Now just graduated um from a experimental archaeology masters at Exat and he yesterday flew out to China to give a guest lecturesship on ancient bronze casting because that's kind of his specialty. Um, so really cool that we've been able to actually take a object from our collections, work with a student, um, and get a working replica from it based on that material and based on other examples like the other solid pommel cap that you saw. Um, which I can then bring to talks like this, which is great and it would be something I would love to do with more of our material. And the radioraphs are really nice. Um so we only have a few. They were taken by the Institute of Archaeology in Oxford um in the 1980s of most of the swords, the shield bosses and the spears from SAR and Bifrons. And it has brought out some new discoveries that I can talk about another day um from that collection which I'm hoping to get fully digitized and made available online. Um, but there's some really interesting developments that have come out of that, which is really cool because they have just been sat there needing to be brought to the light of day, so to speak. As I mentioned, um, my role as curator is quite varied. I get to work with lots of lovely different people in archaeology, and I do get to deal with treasure, which is always the exciting thing. Um so as I mentioned we do have a early medieval um sixth century grave assemblage um which is what you can see in that left hand corner. Um and this was able to be purchased by the society after it had been disclaimed from the treasure process. So under the treasure act, treasure automatically belongs to the crown. Um unless the finder and land owner disclaim it and basically say we don't want the reward, we would rather it went to a museum. Um luckily we were able well my predecessor Dr. Elizabeth Banning was able to work with the former Kent Fines layers and officer Joe Armit um to allow the society to acquire this 6th century grave assemblage. Um and it's of mid6th century date from 530 to 560 AD. Um from a female grave and this is now housed in Maidstone Museum. Unfortunately not on display. Um but something that we might look at doing future exhibitions for in future. Um but this is typical of a high status uh female Kentis burial um of the mid late sixth centuries. Dating can be suggested as it is nar as narrowed. So that 30-year period between 530 and 560 because typically these burials would have a pair of brooches and that brooch a in the left hand corner is a Frankish influence great square headed brooch. Um, and so if this grave assemblage didn't originally have a pair of brooches, um, then let's get this right, then this would have dated to the latter half, latter third of the 6th century AD, so 560 onwards. Um, but this would be really unusual as it's uncommon for such a clearly Frankish style um squareheaded brooch to be present in Kentish graves after the 560s which is why Joe Armet who um studied this piece for the portable antiquity scheme placed it in the 530s to 560s. Um so you can also combine that with the very lovely keystone garnet brooch um which is an advent type one. Avent looked at all these kintish keystone garnet brooes and typified them based on their art style and the placing of the garnets. So this is a very kind of standard style of an avent type brooch. Um which does put it in the 530 to 560 range. more recently of course I have dealt with two treasure cases from your excavation here at Shall. So uh the first being our coin horde which one of the coins uh is showing up here. Um this was a coin hoorde of around 100 coins which William Hurley and his daughters very kindly disclaimed as treasure and we are currently waiting for the British Museum to finish writing their report and release it. Um there will be an inquest as its treasure, but it will be a very quick one because it's been disclaimed. So hopefully that will mean it will then come back and form part of the Sha project archive. Um the horde, if I remember this correctly, yeah, 18 copper alloy Roman numi found in the same area dating between 335 and 395 AD. compromising coins of Constantine II as Caesar, Constance, Constantius II, House of Valentinian, Valentinian the first, Valance, Gracian, Arcadius, which was one I hadn't come across before. Really had me stuck. Um, and the house of Theodosius and three illeible coins dating between 330 and 402. So that 402 is the last possible date that this horde would have been buried. So, give around 402, 403. Um, it was found alongside an iron object which was initially identified as a spearhead on site. Uh, it's very unlikely it's not a spearhead or it's very likely it's not a spearhead. Um, unfortunately, it would be lovely if it was, but it's it's probably not. We've had lots of nonsparheads appear on this site. Um, that is the unfortunate thing of iron being extremely corroded and until you X-ray it, it's very hard to tell what it is you've actually got. Um, so the image that is on there is a copper alloy numi of Gracian dating between 367 and 365 and it is a glori novi seculi reverse type from the mint of allay. Most of them I think were from the mint of Alai and a few from the mint of Tria. Um, obviously the other coin uh the other treasure find that we had to deal with was the Roman foot lamp uh which I'm assuming everybody in here is pretty familiar with. Um that is currently going through the treasure process. The report's been written. We have a date booked in for the treasure inquest which will be where the coroner will hopefully agree with myself and the fine lay as an officer that it is treasure and we'll then decide what the next stage is. Um and that can be a long drawn out process but we will see what happens at the inquest. Part of my role as curator I act as the fine supervisor for KS projects but also for affiliate groups like yourselves. Um, yours is probably the longest I've been on site for, which is great because it gives me lots of experience. Um, but also it's because you guys found so much interesting stuff that needed to be processed and uh, where I can provide advice, I will. Um so the fines processing work involves uh recording lots of paperwork much to guy's annoyance spreadsheets photographs uh counting and weighing finds um recovered from archaeological digs in line with guidelines and that is the chartered institute for archaeologists. It's kind of archaeology's governing body that provides a lot of the guidance that is out there. Majority aimed at commercial units, but has some really useful information for community projects like yourselves. Um, now I am very much a fines generalist. Um, I don't massively like the word fine specialist because I'm not a specialist in one particular type of fines. Uh I am able to record and like recording most types of finds uh from most periods uh except medieval coinage because there are too many Edwards and too many Henry's and they're really annoying um because they've all got the same bust. Um but I'm going to cover a little bit of a summary of the fines processing I've been doing for Sha's metal work. Now that is kind of my area. I can do metal work. I've left the pottery and the coins and the animal bone and the ceramic building material to all the specialists which Fiona and Guy have managed to arrange. So post excavation um as I've already mentioned role of curator is varied and this also means that those I work with can be extremely varied. So I have um for the limb archive alone I've worked with the Kent finds leazison officer um to report on the foot lamp that Neil found that's obviously up there in the corner. I've worked with numis numismmetists um to record the Roman coins from the horde and the other Roman coins that we've got. Um and I've leazed with subject specialists for quotes such as CBM, glass, animal bone and pottery. And then with my own experience of recording small fines and I've been dealing with all of the SHA meta work and registered finds from 2022 through to 2024. So this work has included recording certain objects on the portable antiquity scheme database. Now typically we wouldn't record um archeological finds from excavations on the PAS unless they are treasure. The PAS is designed for stray fines by metal detectorristers, dog walkers, field walkers, anyone that may come across something, beach combers, even um should go on the PAS. If it's treasure, then it definitely goes on the PAS because it's legally obligated to. But anything else over 300 years old, we try to record. Now, where a few of the finds did come out from areas where say Neil was metal detecting that you don't plan on excavating at any point because they don't sit on any of the features from geopys for example. So, you're not going to put a trench in there um and you're not planning to open up the whole area. We made the decision in liaison with Isabelle um to record a number of them on the PAS database so that they have that record as well as being part of the site archive just so that if you decide to put them on display somewhere they have got that link to both the archive and the portable antiquity scheme. One example is obviously the lovely finger ring that Neil found uh which is quite impressive and I have brought it with me so that people can see it. Um so this ring which is Kent FEA94D because the Kent database has a wonderful way of doing numbers. Um is a rotary type ring. So rotary type rings have been recorded from excavations at Colchester and other places. and Crummy who wrote kind of the guide book on early uh on metal work um suggests a database a date in the third for third to fourth centuries AD um and likely association with small boxes and caskets of personal possessions rather than things like doors and cupboards. Um, Garud, which I will admit I've probably butchered the pronunciation and not pre pronunciation of, um, describes type 5e, which is what this coin is, as having decorated rectangular projection. So, the bit which extends out of the ring of uh, of the ring um, with animal designs or open work decorations, which is what this has. So, it's had holes cut out of the solid piece of copper alloy to form an open work decoration. Uh, answers on a postcard, please, about what that object design is supposed to be. It's got a bit of a swastika feel to it. It could be an animal. It could just be some random geometric shapes. The Romans did all sorts of crazy things, so who knows? Um, but the interesting thing from this coin, uh, from this ring is that most of Garud's type 5E are in gold or silver. Very few of them are found in copper alloy. Now, that might be that we just haven't found enough of them and that the copper the silver and gold preserves obviously a lot better. Um, but my personal theory is that potentially this is a master copy because the the open work design is tad crude. I think you can be fair to say. So potentially this is what they're making a mold from to then cast their silver and gold rings potentially. It's it's just an idea. Um, as someone who does some craft work, that's how I would want to make a ring out silver and gold. You'd cast it into a mold. Um, but there will be other jewelers who would disagree, which is fine. It's what archaeology is all about. So, furthermore, to brief summary, um, I've been working on cataloging all of Shia's metawwork special finds from the excavations, um, including the 2022, 2023, and 2024. Now, from 2023 and 2024, we've recorded a total of 155 recorded metawwork finds. So these are the special metal work finds that you put aside. Um, of these 50 were of iron, 34 of copper alloy, 10 of lead and seven were waste materials, predominantly waste droplets more than anything in 2023. In 2024, 11 iron objects, 16 copper alloy, three lead, and one waste. And I think for 2024 is because you guys got a lot better at picking out what did or didn't need to be recorded as a special find because you started doing that development through doing the postex work. Um, which is why you've got a lot lower number in 2024. It's not that you didn't find as much because you definitely did. Um, it's just that you got a lot better at spotting what needed to be put aside as special finds, which is great. you know that shows that you guys are developing and picking up those identification skills which is really really good. Um, so I have taken all of the metal work, including the stuff from 2022 to Canterbury Christ Church University, um, to be x-rayed, which has now shown a lot of the objects in a much better condition. But also, it provides Shall with a record of what state they are in now. They've gone undergone some minor cleaning and and kind of preventative conservation. So it will then be once the report has been written like the final report and the archive returns to shell and you have all the materials you can then go through the metawwork and decide what you want to keep, what you want to discard, what you want to keep for handling, what might be better for display, what needs to see a conser a trained conservator to really either undergo further analysis or um be better preserved. for long-term preservation, but the X-ray will serve as a record of what state it's in now. And then if you send something to a conservator, like for example, one of the knives that was found, um, when by the time it gets to the conservator, they might take an X-ray and they might see that there's been further degradation in certain elements and they'll be able to see and compare it to the X-ray we've taken so that they can make the best judgment on that treatment. So, it's a really good useful resource and more and more archaeological units now are as a matter of course X-raying their finds if they happen to have either their own X-ray machine, which some do um or a very friendly X-ray uh radiographer like I do, James Elliot at um Canterbury Christ Church, who is very keen on X-raying archaeological metal work uh because he's got an archaeology background which helps. Um, so yeah, I'm also pulling together all the special funds from 2022 which weren't reported on in depth. There's a small article on KAS, but no, as far as I'm aware, no specialist reporting was done because it was quite a small scale. Um, so you will have a summary of some of the metal work from that. Um, predominantly hobnails, lots of those, mostly from the cremation burial, which you would expect. So, some of the extra examples just to really show you what you're getting. So, on the right hand side, you've got Neil's ring. You can see how kind of dense. So, the whiter the object is, the denser the metal or the denser the material. These were taken at 70 kvs at 5second intervals basically. So, the the strength of the X-ray was 70 and then it was taken at a 5-second snapshot. Um, the object that is on your left there is a small fragment of possibly a box fitting. It's a small L-shaped object and the um which has kind of been folded over and the dense circles are the rivets which are still in place. Now, it could be Roman, it could be later. Um, it's very difficult to tell because box fittings don't really change. They look, you know, Victorian box fittings can have a similar appearance. Um, so what this will need is comparison with between my report, the coin report, and the pottery report. Richard will then be able to pull together whether this is potentially a residual later find that's been brought in through plowing or other disturbance on the land or whether it is an insitue or at least was an insitue find from the Roman or postmedieval period. Those are your two those are the only two periods you've got on site is Roman or late or much later 18th 19th century. So, it's going to be one of those two options. Hopefully Roman. That's what we would all like. Um, maybe I can't remember exactly which context these were both Well, the box fitting was found in a trench. Obviously, the ring wasn't, but depending on depths maybe associated together, who knows? Um, the next is this lovely knife. Um, this really shows how well this is and really helps with identification as well. Obviously, when you see this in person, it does look like a knife, but it's very rusted, very corroded. Um, this shows you a lot better. So, you can see the fragment of the blade, and the portion of the tip, the actual very end of the tip is gone, but the portion of the tip is just about held on predominantly by soil. um is basically the only thing holding that portion on, which a conservator will be able to fix if they feel that it's necessary. At the moment, because we've not done any further cleaning on it, it's perfectly fine. It's well packaged, but potentially we may need to do more of it. So, as I can say, you can see that it's starting to degrade with the tip already lost. But this is likely a Manning 1985. Manning wrote a catalog of all the knives and weapons and metal work in the British Museum in the 1980s. Um, and this is a type 11 knife. So, he basically put all the objects into a different typology depending on shape and size and length and and other characteristics. Um, and I believe this to be a Manning type 11 knife, although a Roman knife specialist would be able to confirm it definitely. And that's something which you can look to get funding for to analyze specific objects. Um, which is what I'll put in my report that that's what you should do. Um, but so the form of these knives, these type 11 knives are a back that continues along the line of the handle. So you have the end of the handle here and the the back of the handle and the back of the knife are pretty much one with a slight convex curve to them. Um, and the edge is slight is straight or slightly convex, which this one is, uh, rising up to where the tip would have been. Um, and now the majority of the examples, which you'll see on the second knife, are straight tanged. So, they would have had tang all the way through where you would have had bone or wood um, plates put either side of it. This one, however, I am fairly happy, is a group B knife. So, type 11, group B, um, which have rod handles terminating in a loop. Now, the reason I think that is that part of the handle is obviously very rounded. It's very dense. So, it's much more likely, and I'll show you the second knife to show the comparison. Much more likely that this is rounded. And you might just see the wire sticking off the end. Now, I thought that might have just been fragment of corrosion that's that's stuck off, but potentially that's part of the suspension loop maybe. Um, again, conservator doing some more abrasive cleaning will be able to reveal that information if that's something you want to go the route down. Um, but here you can see the second knife. So, the second knife, which is up the top, still type 11. So, still got that straight handle into a pretty much straight back curving down to the tip and a fairly straight convex edge curving up towards the tip. Pretty standard knife shape. Most of you have probably got a knife that looks like that in your kitchen somewhere. But you can see on here the much more square section tang. So, this is a whittle tang. So, a uh circular bone or wood handle would have basically been hammered onto the end of the tang, which is why we no longer have the handle because the organic material corrode or degrades and then falls off. It's quite a weak um handle. The amount of times you've probably had handles of cooking implements fall off, it's because predominantly they are fitted in that similar way. Nice big hole, put the knife through it. Do you know what the knives were used for? Were they stabbing people or No, these are general purpose everyday use knives predominantly probably for cooking and butchery of animals. They are not military knives. They are very common standard knives. That knife I found a skull. An animal skull. There are exactly we have lots of animal bones with cut marks. I've got a little piece of tibia I think that's got cut marks. So, which is why I think we have got these kind of knives. They are the type 11 ones can be divided into knife or cleavers. Now, I still think these are knives because they're quite um shallow in depth, but it's that kind of cleaver action that you're probably getting from this. So yeah, much more if it's going to be stabbing anyone, it's going to be stabbing pigs and cows and cattle and that sort of thing rather than your native Britain. Um, also on this X-ray you can see uh the hinge on the left. Uh, this is very dense, very heavy, likely modern fencing. It's probably from a 20th century gate post. Uh, sorry, I know, I know. Um, and then you have the hollow stemmed key on the right which was found at the top of the lime kiln feature. So most likely that limekn has ceased functioning by the 18th century because that's a hollow stem. And this is why the x-rays are so important because when you are looking at it in person, you can't because it's still got dirt and grime and things and corrosion on it. You cannot tell how hollow it is. Was it just just a top little circle like most of our modern keys have or is it hollow all the way through? When you x-ray it, you can see really clearly it's hollow pretty much all the way through where it's then cast onto the handle, which puts it in the 18th century, possibly even going into the 19th century, especially with that nice oval um key loop. So definitely later which gives us the end point the get my archaeological Latin right the terminus postqu or TPQ of that feature. It must have been ended. It must have been backfilled by at least the 18th century. We also have bottle caps at the bottom of it. So be that as it may, it was still open at least when that bottle cap was around which probably was the 19th century. So, it might be that this was at the bottom and it's been chucked up on the top when they've dumped a load of stuff. But given that there's a cottage in the field down on the historic maps, that's probably where that's come from, I imagine, because why else would you need a key in the middle of a farmer's field at the top of a hill. Um, but yeah, so X-ray is super useful and it's very helpful that Canterbury Christ Church are willing to do this for me. We also have a bunch of military buttons. So, it appears the beacon field was used fairly extensively for military training exercises at some stage or another. Um, any Arsenal fans in the room will probably recognize the button in the top left. Um, it is the badge of the Royal Artillery. Um, and then the one in the bottom right is the button of the 68th regiment Durham of Foot or 68th Durham Regiment of Foot. Um, which was billeted in Kent at Borton Lees. So, a very nice hour and a half's walk from here. Um, between 1806 to 1809 before they were shipped off to the continent to fight Napoleon and Napoleon's forces. Um, so really nice tangible link that we know that the 68th Regiment of Foot was based in Kent, just up the road from you guys. H, and we have one of their military buttons on the site. So whether they were visiting down here using Beacon Field as a training exercise given that we have lots of other military buttons from here. Um we have another one of the rural artillery. We have an one of the 63rd regiment of foot as well. Annoyingly not the 65th. I'd really like to find a 65th one because the 68th the reason they were in Kent was to train the 65th regiment of foot. So it would be really nice if we could find a 65th regiment. So that's the target for next year. Neil, if you want to metal detect and find the 65th regiment of foot would be great. Um but it's really nice, you know, if you've got someone in the village um interested in military, modern military history, 19th century military history, this could be really interesting for them. They might be like, I don't care about the Romans. Give me that. Um so that's really nice. We get a nice a nice image of that. You can see how it would have been mounted. We also have a lovely coin of George V 6th as well. Um, and a few other military buttons. This is just a small selection. There's quite a few. Um, what's the one in the middle? Middle on the bottom. Don't know. It is a large fragment of wreath, which means it could be from any kind of military cat badge probably. Um but because all we have is the wreath and predominantly almost every military regimen has a wreath at some stage in his existence. It could be from any any one of them. Cat badge um military vehicle insignia. It's it's fairly big. It's about this size. So it's probably more along the cat badge or horse bridal decoration. We've got loads of horse bridal harnesses um all of kind of 20th century date. So I'm veering more towards it being horse related of some military uniform. Um so that's a very quick summary of the archaeology I've been doing for Sha. Um there will be much more in the full report once I finish it. It's nearly there. You'll be happy to know guy it's nearly finished. Uh, I've just got to photograph all your nice things to really kind of sell them in the report um and pull together some more of the the loose strands there. But unfortunately uh I don't get to just deal with objects themselves. It's uh part of my job that I also have to deal with the many guidance and policy documents which are required for a museum andor archaeological collection to function. So um recently I've been working on the society's collections development policy which um basically with the board of trustees governs how the society what we take in what we want to look after how we look after it. Um I've also been working with Maidstone Museum on how we formulate our human remains policy. So the care and storage of human remains is a very contentious, very tricky and very paperwork heavy area um that you have to consider as a museum archeological unit, even society. If you decide that you're going to hold human remains, you know, if you find any more on your excavations, obviously you have had human remains, both cremated and um physical skeletons. So, it's something to consider about how you deal with it. Um, so there are a huge number of guides out there. Don't worry, you don't have to start from scratch. um to help you formulate your own policy documents, whether that be your human remains. Uh you can see English heritages is up there. Um your policy for care and conservation, so how you look after how you conserve your material, your collections development policy, and you can also find guidance on the more detailed level uh such as how you process your fines. And obviously I sent round my fines processing guide on how I do it. You may find the more you do your fieldwork that you will have your own way of doing things. Um, and you will want to write that down so that everybody knows you're doing it the same way. Um, and you may even wish to speak to some of the other local archaeological groups of your kind of size that are doing similar things. Um so for example the in the bottom lefthand corner there is from the Favversham Society Archaeological Research Group who have a whole load of policy documents that are they very kindly put on the internet and allow you to use um depending on how you want to do your own policies. there a really good starting point to have a look at and think yeah we want to do that we don't want to do this and figure things out as you go it's fine paperwork bit done the fun thing is uh we get to do a lot of partnership working um so I get to work with organizations like the le estate uh for our fieldwork projects the favversham creek trust the favversham society archaeological research group I just mentioned uh museum of London an archaeology coast in mind obviously yourselves um we've done museum partnerships so maidstone museum the Amelia Scott and Tumbridge Wales the Favversham flur dee museum um but also wider organizations like the Kent DS national landscape I've done interviews for KMTV and history hit uh we've worked with educational institutions so currently Canterbury Christ Church University of Kent uh I've just started having conversations with University College London and also Cardiff university as well. Um, and obviously as I mentioned the portable antiquity scheme. Um, and we as the society, we're incredibly fortunate to have these strong links with a number of partners like yourselves. Um, and that's something that I'm actively working to increase and get more work out of that. So, our biggest highlight from last year um, and probably one of the projects I'm most proud of, um, is our work alongside Maidstone Museum for the to develop the lives in our landscape gallery. Has anybody been to the Lives in our landscape gallery? One. Thanks. Thanks, Brandon. I'm glad somebody has. Um, so if you haven't, it is Maidstone Museum's new uh archaeology gallery focusing on the county of Kent. Goes all the way from the Paleolithic all the way through to the medieval period. Um, and it celebrated its one-year anniversary last June, this June, uh, 4th of June. Um, highly recommend a visit if you want to go. They've got a great Roman section. Um, they obviously have a great Anglo-Saxon early medieval section predominantly from our material. Um, but you will also see my face on some of the interactives. Uh, like the how we know what we know section, which is kind of talking about how as archaeologists we identify sites, how we do field work, um, how we do the finds processing. So, kind of the things I've talked about with you guys. And there are there is now a screen with my face talking about that and will be there for the next 15 years, much for my crimes. But there is also a great interactive map of all the historic environment record data from all periods um which me and other volunteers worked on drilling down to actually make them uh viewable on a interactive map which is great fun to play around with. Um, and so some of the work I undertook as part of that project, as well as the filming stuff, is assisting the museum team on selecting archaeological objects to meet each of the galleries themes, advising on um orientation of objects for mount making, filming the how we know what we know interactive, proofreading exhibition text and labels, um, so do blame me if there are any errors. um assisting the mount makers and as you can see there with me with my hat on labeling K objects. That was me labeling I think one of our gold talks which is a terrifying aspect of trying to label with paraloid B72 and ink a 30,000y old piece of bronze age gold. Um because I would very quickly lose my job if I damaged that. Um but it's all good. It's all on display which is lovely. So, if you haven't seen our gold, it is worth going to see. Um, also very happy to say that the new gallery, named after Paul, uh, formerly a KS president and unfortunately, uh, who we lost, uh, last year, um, that new local history gallery will be opening next weekend, 19th of July. So, if you haven't gone for the lives in our landscape gallery, you could also go for the Oldm Gallery and see both, see two in one. Um, Pardon? Uh, they are both in Maidstone Museum. Um, so if you go through the grand hall, the TUDA hall with the singing piece of armor. Ignore that. Go down the steps. Oh, yeah. The armor singing goes No. Yeah, I'm not. Um, the Lives and Our Landscape Gallery is on our is on your left. The Oldm Gallery will be straight in front of you and you can do a nice loop and see both. Um, so yeah, lots to see. Um, I've also taken part in filming with history hit um on TV here on the Shell site. Um, talking about dog bone, I think I was Yeah, dog jawbone I was talking about there. I know nothing about animal bone. So, that was a fun interview to do. Um, and also taken part in 3D scanning of archeological objects for Maidstone Museum and most recently for the Royal Engineers Museum as well. But our bread and butter is obviously our public outreach events such as the festival of archaeology which will be at Maidstone Museum on the 2nd of August. If you want to come and say hello to me then if you're not sick of me already then please do drop by. Um we're there from 10 till 3. So a nice busy day. Um and our community excavation at Front Brents. So search for Front Brent. Front Brents was a site of some 19th century tenement buildings in Favversham. Um, and we undertook an excavation there from the 24th of June, uh, 24th of May to the 1st of June looking for these 19th century buildings. Obviously, spoiler alert, we found them because they're only a spade deep, which was quite nice. I'd highly recommend when you get home, go and look on the KS website, look at our models section. you will see 3D models of some of our collection objects, but also we've done a 3D model of the trench itself. And this is something that Jacob, our digital manager, is quite happy to come out and do. Doesn't take him long, maybe half a day, um, plus some processing. So, for example, for the, you know, the training dig potentially or any future work on Beacon Field, um, if you want some 3D models done of the site, which work really well as a an addition. They're not replacements for the written record, but they are an addition that you can add to your public engagement. You can have on a website like we do. Um, and it's really quite fun floating around the site. You can add annotations. So as you learn more as we learn more information about front brens um we will start being able to plot annotations on what some of these features are. Um we had over 300 people turn up on this site and take part in archaeology from both the local area and a few further a field uh including 34 3 to four year olds from the local nursery. What was your best find from the that my favorite find? So all of the stuff on there was 19th century stuff. So, it's all very modern. Our favorite find, which actually typically came out on the very first day, was a lovely um China clay bird whistle. So, some of you may have seen these, some of you may have even had them. The little bird whistle that you either blew straight into or you'd put water in a little hole, blow it, and it would bring the bird song. We've got a lovely red and cream bird, China clay bird whistle. Unfortunately, missing the head. Really annoying. Um, but it was one of the best finds because the whole point for this project as well as uncovering the archaeology was the community engagement aspect of it and having that find out on display for everyone to come and see. The amount of people we had who remembered either growing up in these buildings or their grandparents growing up in these buildings because they were only knocked down in the 1970s. So, they're fairly recent history. And we had people going, "Oh, I had one of those. I had a plastic one or I had a wooden one or I had a metal one. I remembered what sound they made which was really a nice way of working. Um and we did that project in partnership with Museum of London coasts in mind project who they are looking at coastal change along the swale eststerie um over the last hundred years. So they got a huge amount of um local memories and oral histories from that just being there and they were only there for three days with us and they got tons of photographs, memories, workshop discussions um which is all going to form a lovely story map on their website which will go up on our website as well so everyone can see it. Um but yeah, it was a really fun project. So yeah, the bird whistle was probably probably the best. Um so that is pretty much and I can hear the kettle going which is always good. Um, a very quick run through. A quick plug. As I said, Thursday 17th of July, we have our uh talk from Isabelle Diggle, part of a series of online talks that society does via our free Zoom account. Um, which you don't have to be a KS member for. Um, you can just join online. Um, talking all about a step in the right direction, further discoveries of the limb lamp, which I'm really looking forward to and I hope you guys are too. and can join us. Um, so I just want to say a big thank you to ha for having me uh listening to me wax lyrical about the vagaries of some of my um role and if you guys have any questions I'm happy to hear them answer them as best I can. Um I do also have some of the references I mentioned if anybody wants these I'm quite happy to send them round.