YLM Database – Summaries
Richborough Roman Fort and Amphitheatre
Kent – CT13 9JW
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/richborough-roman-fort-and-amphitheatre/
Funded by:
Number of ancestors in collection:
Total:
River & Rowing Museum
Henley on Thames
Funded by:
Number of ancestors in collection:
Total: 0
Rochdale Arts & Heritage Service
Arts & Heritage Centre
Esplanade
Rochdale
Greater Manchester
OL16 1AQ
http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/leisure_and_culture/museums_and_galleries.aspx
Funded by:
Charitable Trust
Number of ancestors in collection:
The museum holds a small amount of cremated remains from the Neolithic / Bronze Age.
Total: 1
Rochester Guildhall Museum
High Street
Rochester
Kent
ME1 1PY
Funded by:
Local authority (Medway Council)
Number of ancestors in collection:
1. Wouldham Bronze Age Burial. Excavated by the Maidstone area Archaeological Group in 1982. This was a heavily ploughed-out Bronze Age barrow, containing one cremation with a biconical urn and one crouched inhumation. The site report is in Archaeologia Cantiana 1983, p 81-108, by R J Cruse & A C Harrison. The burial was on display for over ten years at the museum, with the urn and inhumation in position, and a reconstruction of the excavator’s interpretation of a series of post-holes as either an exposure platform or mortuary house subsequently burnt as part of a funerary ritual. The skull of the inhumed individual was examined and a facial reconstruction prepared by Manchester University. This is the only excavated Bronze Age material from Medway that the museum holds. 2. Romano-British woman from Rochester. Excavated in 1974 by A C Harrison in advance of road widening & demolition of Victorian houses on Corporation Street. A trench near the City wall uncovered a Romano-British inhumation in poor condition with the legs truncated away by a medieval pit. The burial was illegal by Roman law as it occurs within the City walls, and the excavators initially considered the possibility that this was suspicious. However, the burial was respectfully done, with the body carefully laid out, wearing three bracelets & twelve bangles. The site is reported in Archaeologia Cantiana 1981, p.95-136, by A C Harrison. Some of the jewellery is on display in the Roman gallery, and the skull is occasionally shown to groups studying Romano-British history. The woman seems to have had a ‘sweet tooth’, and has significant dental caries and traces of a serious abscess. This is unusual skeletal evidence showing dietary patterns in Roman Rochester. 3. Romano-British cremations in urns. Several urns containing Romano-British cremations were purchased from workmen by George Payne, the first Director of the museum in 1906. They were dug up as part of the industrial extraction of uralite, a silicate mineral used for making asbestos & other materials. Two cremations from the Lower Shorne & Higham area are on display in their urns with other grave goods in the Roman gallery. Two others are in store, and one is with the collection used by our education officer with visiting specialist groups studying Romano-British history. Their acquisition is recorded in Payne’s notebooks, Volume II, p.432-436 (Nov 1906). 4. Anglo-Saxon skull from burials in Rochester. A small Anglo-Saxon cemetery was uncovered and dug by workmen building extensions & cellars to large Victorian houses on Watts Avenue in Rochester. George Payne made some notes & sketches during the building work. Some of the grave goods (including spearheads, shield bosses & knives) were kept, together with one skull, the rest of the human remains being deemed in too poor condition for preservation. The discovery is recorded in the Chatham News on April 26th 1896. The skull is displayed with appropriate grave goods in the Anglo-Saxon case. The burials can be interpreted as either Pagan or early Christian, Rochester being the second earliest cathedral foundation of 604CE.
Total: 10
Roman Baths Museum
Pump Room
Stall Street
Bath
Somerset
BA1 1LZ
Funded by:
Local Authority : Bath and North East Somerset Council
Number of ancestors in collection:
The museum holds 290 individual human remains, 48 of which are Roman or earlier.
Total: 290
Rossendale Museum
Whitaker Park
Rawtenstall
Rossendale
Lancashire
BB4 6RE
Funded by:
Number of ancestors in collection:
Total: 0
Royal Air Force Museum
Grahame Park Way
Hendon
London
NW9 5LL
Funded by:
Number of ancestors in collection:
There is just one in the collection, a skull reportedly of African origin from the early twentieth century, but whose true provenance is unclear. The museum are currently considering ways of letting go of it ethically.
Total: 1
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
Queen Street
Exeter
Devon
EX4 3RX
Funded by:
Exeter City Council
Number of ancestors in collection:
The human remains in the museum’s care are laid out here … African (date uncertain) : 1; Egyptian (21-25 Dynasty) : 3; British Neolithic : 1; British Late Neolithic : 8 cremations; British Bronze Age : 6; British Roman : 10, plus 3 bags of cremated bone from other sites, and 5 sets of bone fragments (213 in total); British Post Roman : material from 6 graves; British Christian (Early Medieval) : 8 groups of articulated bone, and 5 boxes of redeposited unarticulated bone, both from one site; British of unknown period : 2. There are also 220 pieces of modern human remains held in the Natural History collection. These are over 100 years old so fall outside of the Human Tissue Act.
Total: 500
Royal College of Physicians Museum
London
https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk
Funded by:
Charity
Number of ancestors in collection:
– Five human anatomical tables, all from Padua Italy, 17th century
– A forensic sample of bone fragments, British, 19th century
– Silver caul case with caul, c 1820.
None are pre-Christian or pagan.
Total: 7
Royal College of Surgeons
35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London
WC2A 3PE
http://www.rcseng.ac.uk/museums
Funded by:
Number of ancestors in collection:
The museum has around 10 000 human remains, but the vast majority of these are from post-mortem dissection or surgery rather than exhumation. They do have a collection of human remains from archaeological excavations, but this is small (c. 400 individually catalogued human remains) compared to the whole. As a result, a significant part of the collection comprises ‘modern’ (post-1900) remains, and as such has been treated under the terms of the Human Tissue Act 2004 rather that the DCMS Guidance (although they try to ensure their policies embrace best-practice aspects of both).
Total:
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