Nottingham City Museums and Galleries
Community and Culture Department
History & Archaeology Team
Brewhouse Yard
Castle Boulevard
Nottingham
NG7 1FB
01159153620
Parent Organisation:
Funded by:
YLM Entry Submitted: Yes
Comments:
The Museum of Nottingham Life and the Castle Museum and Art Gallery are both run by Nottingham City Museums & Galleries.
How many human remains are in its collection, and how many of those are of ancient British provenance, pre-Christian or in other way Pagan?:
An incomplete collection representing c140 individuals, the majority following non-Christian religions.
Total: 140
How many of these human remains are well documented, with clear context of date and place of exhumation?:
The site archives are available for Cotgrave, Nottingham Castle, Coneygre Farm and Broughton Lodge, the latter is published as a monograph by the Thoroton Society, however, this collection is split between ourselves and the Notingham University Archaeology Museum, who have half of the grave goods and human remains. Nottingham Castle has also been published as a separate Thoroton volume and some of the other sites are published to a smaller extent in Thoroton and other local archaeological publications. The archives for the remaining archaeology is likely to have been carried out by antiquarians in the past before standards were implemented and some have lost some of their documentation details in the past.
Where there are ancestors in store, is there a history of use?:
The Egyptian and Tibetan material have formed part of placement documentation projects with teams of students from Leicester Museum Studies in the past, the former being carried out this Summer. The Mummy was also for 3 years part of a project looking at collections with 2nd year Nottingham Trent University [NTU] fashion students to inspire their development of a workbook and capsule wardrobe, their major work project for the year. At the end of the first year of this project an exhibition was mounted to show a selection of the objects and the outfits they inspired. In addition, the Mummy was also used by two photography students at NTU to put on an exhibition together focusing on the Egyptian collections for their end of year show about 3 years ago. Most of the other material has not been used directly by enquirers, other than for surveys such as this by professional bodies and by other students carrying out dissertations on human remains, always in a questionnaire form, rather than coming to view the material for themselves. We have had around 20 such enquiries in the last 8 years. We do carry out store tours for National Archaeology Week, Heritage Open Days and others for special groups on request. As part of this we will show the Mummy but only if all of the group are happy for us to get it out. So far no one has requested it not to be shown. None of the human remains are on direct display within any of our stores and most are in the roller racking in the archaeology box store, part-funded by English Heritage. We hold and Anglo-Saxon week at the Museum of Nottingham Life every spring in which we have in the past given talks on the burial practices, showing images of the site at the time of excavation. We have now simplified this to looking at male and female burial goods from the site overlying them on two large photographs of skeletons, as ours are too fragmented for me to actually use.
Where there are ancestors in store, is there potential for use, in display, education or scientific analysis?
Unfortunately, although the Broughton Lodge cemetery is the largest collection of material we hold, the material is extremely fragmented, so we would not recommend further display other than the single skeleton for future redevelopment. The Egyptian Mummy is unusual in having been painted in bitumen and so does not look like mummies in traditional museum displays. We do offer Egyptian sessions at the Castle for schools, although there is not a dedicated gallery for this subject. However, with other very important material we have in the collections there certainly is future potential for display of this item but with warnings for those who may not want to come into contact with human remains. We have not the other archaeological/antiquity remains or their assemblages and so could not comment on their display potential, however, we would suggest that their potential may lie more strongly with research. The Ethnographic items are rather more disturbing, having been transformed into ritual items. For scientific analysis the Broughton Lodge is the largest collection, when the University Museum material is added to it, although the population would still not reach 500 and so it is questionable whether without a strong regional requirement to look further into the potential of this collection, that further scientific analysis would be likely to take place. The Mummy has been x-rayed but this did not indicate the reason for death, so ideally we would like further analysis carried out on this specimen.
Does the museum have a disposal policy, and is it including HR with negligible potential in its discussions about disposal?:No
The museum does not have defined policy for disposal of human remains. However, we do have a document for the deposition of archive with the museum service and this does recommend the reburial of human remains where possible, unless there are specific reasons for retention, i.e. it is part of an important assemblage, has intereseting or important pathology or is part of a very large assemblage, usually 500+, where future statistical and scientific analysis could prove a valuable resource.
What sources of information about these human remains are in the public domain and where?:
In addition to the archives, we are constantly developing history files for all of the sites in our collecting area, including those for which we hold human remains. The public are welcome to come and use any of the sources housed at Brewhouse Yard, having made an appointment and the Keepers can print off the details from the database.
Does the museum have ancestors (human remains) on display?:Yes
A single skeleton from Broughton Lodge surrounded by a selection of burial goods but not necessarily those found with that skeleton. This was put together by a predecessor of the current curator whou would probably have preferred to use a plastic skeleton to reconstruct the riches from the site, as this had some very interesting associated objects. There are no present plans for the exhibition of further human remains in the present displays or any of the planned temporary exhibitions at Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery.
The museum reports that it has not had any negative feedback from the public or via Castle Museum Assistants in regard to the display of this material.
Does the museum hold any iconic ancestors, ie. complete skeletons with a well documented story, or those considered of national or local importance, and are these on display?:
No. Many of the skeletons from Broughton Lodge are complete but for the majority of those each of the bones is fragmented into many pieces, making the display opportunities more difficult. There are several interesting burials in addition to the richest grave which could be focussed upon in a display.
Has the museum used or considered using replicas in displays? If not, why not and what would you find useful in moving to these? If you have, what response did these receive?:
Documents:
26 August, 2008
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