Video Test, Take 1

This video is mainly a test to see if we can publish such media onto this blog. About six months ago we traveled to the Adirondacks to celebrate our graduations. Trying out software, we created this short video diary of our trip.

Four Museums by the Sea

About a week or so ago, Kevin and I survived a two hour bus ride, on a bus full of chatty 18-year-olds, (or talkative students I perceived could not possibly be older than the age of 18), in the wee hours of the brisk English morning to Liverpool. Shortly after arrival, and one egg-sandwich later, we found ourselves at Albert Dock with about seven hours to kill. The city of Liverpool developed around its maritime activities, as one England's largest ports. Albert Dock, a series of docks and warehouses first opened in 1846, (and for those of you interested, also the first non-combustible warehouse system in the world, as it was the first in Britain to be built from cast iron, brick, and stone), is currently a major tourist attraction and one of the six locations in Liverpool granted World Heritage Status by UNESCO. This specific dock was the lucky winner of our patronage that lovely Saturday due to the high concentration of museums, restaurants, and shops within its rehabilitated walls. In just one day we were able to visit the Beatles Story, Tate Liverpool, Merseyside Maritime Museum, and the International Slavery Museum.

The Beatles Story, surprisingly, tells the story of The Beatles. As I'm noticing with many museums here in England, The Beatles Story contained many experiential elements. Exhibit spaces are transformed into certain locations, bringing the visitor into the world of The Beatles. When describing the band's experiences in Germany, visitors stepped onto a street in Hamburg alongside an exterior of a club, inside which The Beatles played to a sold-out crowd, the muffled music reaching the street. Neon signs proclaimed club names and sprawled on the recreated sides of buildings is graffiti reading "Ich leibe dich, John!" Other experiential spaces throughout the exhibit included a 1960s-era plane to represent the band's invasion of America, a completely recreated (to scale) Cavern Club, and of course a very playground-like version of the Yellow Submarine. A reflective space at the end of the exhibition included four separate viewing rounds, each customized to fit the persona of the specific Beatle whose life achievements it chronicled.

Tate Liverpool is the Liverpool arm of the Tate, which includes Tate St. Ives, Tate Cornwall, and the two London Tates: Tate Modern and Tate Britain. The museum focuses on international modern art, although it also shows works from the Tate's national collection of British art, which is more traditional in scope. The renewed warehouse which holds the gallery has been fantastically converted. The prime exhibition space includes roomy galleries with high ceilings and a daring use of bright pink paint on the walls. Along with its semi-permenent, and fantastic, sculpture gallery, we luckily stumbled upon the rotating gallery and Mark Rothko's Seagram Murals. Each of the nine works, out of the original forty, had been created by Rothko for the Four Seasons Restaurant in 1958-1959. Although meditative and emotive, Rothko once admitted his true intention in creating the murals was to "ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-b*tch who ever eats in that room. If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment." Hot.


A surprising treat turned out to be the Maritime Museum. Never a real fan of naval and oceanic history, I found myself truly engaged with the exhibits. Again elements of transformation created spaces which directly reminded visitors of the subject matter of each gallery. A recreated street scene of the early 1940s brought patrons into the realities of a country under attack. Visitors may have come to see the blockbuster-type opening exhibits focused on major boating disasters of the 20th century, (Titanic, Lusitania, and Empress), but stayed to learn about the Battle of the Atlantic, careers on the sea, luxurious tourist and passenger liners, and cargo shipping. A kitchen interactive visually explained what everyday items the British still receive through shipping trade. An interdisciplinary gallery featured artwork involving the sea, from paintings to sculpture.

Connected to the Maritime Museum is the International Slavery Museum. Initially entering the museum I was surprised to find connections made between historical and contemporary slavery with an exhibit exploring slavery today. Moving from this orientation space into a chronologically organized exhibition, the visitor is first introduced to an almost anthropological look at west African culture, again employing experiential elements of recreated homes. This section connects historical slavery with west Africans, and shows the spread of culture from Africa to the new world. I appreciated the introductory label, which clearly stated that Africa is the birthplace of human cultures and civilization; all ancestors originally came from Africa. The second main section looks at the middle passage and enslavement of west Africans. Along with experiential exhibitions, I've found museum interactives in England to be highly developed and generally in wide use. At the International Slavery Museum, interactive maps allow visitors to choose historic characters and routes. The interpretation in this section does not shy away from Liverpool's involvement in the slave trade or the tremendous horrors of the middle passage experience. The last main section is an exploration of modern legacies of slavery, including discrimination in both the United States and the UK. One object we found was actually a klan outfit from Orange County in New York State. A "Black Achievers Wall" featured inspirational black leaders, intellectuals, writers, athletes, and famous faces. An overflow wall has been started, and will be continued. Barack Obama's photograph is a recent addition.

Along with experiential exhibitions and highly developed interactions, visitor service is greatly valued in British museums. These highly trafficked museums in tourist hubs function as professional businesses where the visitor is the valued customer. All four museums were free of charge, offered audio tours, and aides for disabled visitors, such as Braille guides and special tours. While the text on panels followed a generally uniform size, fitting within the basic guidelines of appropriate museum exhibition practice, extra large label text booklets were usually available for visitors with less than stellar eye sight.


After a successful day museum hopping, we journeyed back to Sheffield upon the bus of broken dreams (OK, maybe over exaggerating, but those "young adults" were chatty!) However, riding through the Peaks District at sunset made up for any initial irritating bus experience.

Peveril Castle and Mam Tor

Our final stop last month was the village of Castleton, where we took in an 11^th century castle and a Bronze Age hill fort. Peveril Castle, completed in 1086 (only twenty years after William of Normandy successfully invaded the country and sitting very far to the exposed North), was givin to Peveril, a supporter of William. As Cavedale was the historic centre of the lead-mining industry in the Peak Forest, Peveril Castle was to be used to control the trade and access to the area. Because this area is considered the “Light Peak,” meaning that it’s set upon a limestone bases as opposed to the rougher and less agriculture-friendly gritstone of the “Dark Peak,” caves abound in the area. There is actually a large cave system under the Castle and surrounding valley itself, including a nearby cave that is the only cave in Britain that one can actually take a boat into. 

 

Across the valley, the large Bronze Age site of Mam Tor (“Mother Hill” or “Shivering Mountain”) can be seen. During this period, these hill forts pop up across England, seeming to be temporary areas of respite and protection. From Peveril Castle, you can actually make out the tall (10 m) earthworks that comprise large cuts in the side of the tor to produce a steep and insurmountable wall. Once on top of Mam Tor, we discussed cultural landscapes and built environments, as well as the need to control valley routes throughout history in the area. 

Navio Fort

Navio is the site of a large Roman fort that now lies in the center of a pasture. Across the Peak District, public footpaths crisscross the countryside, villages, and people’s fields, complete with quaint gates that happily oblige walkers on the journey.

The Peak’s mineral resources were known to the Romans, who began to build these border forts from a single design. As most of the fort was constructed from locally cut wood, the only remains today are the stones that once formed the cellar that stored the soldiers' pay. Today, one can still see the basic edges of the fort within the pasture, as the ground is raised in areas. Also, the walking path through the area follows the still-visible roadbed that ran through the fort.

This day, the cows were extraordinarily curious and friendly. Or perhaps they wanted to get in on the discussion about historic period mineral trades.

The Cathedral of the Peak

After leaving Arbor Low and Gib Hill, we drove into the tiny village of Tideswell, in the heart of the Peak District. Once a centre of the area’s lead-mining industry from the Roman to Medieval periods, Tideswell is home to an Orvis store (outdoor clothing) and the Cathedral of the Peak. Tideswell Church was completed in the 14^th century during the Black Death. The inside was gorgeous and a great example of such a church that was shaped and reshaped during the centuries before and after the Reformation.

Arbor Low and Gib Hill

These next few posts are continuations of the narrative I started about the Department of Archaeology’s fieldtrip to interesting sites around the Peak District during Fresher’s Week, almost a month ago. With my program hitting full swing, I’ve been too busy to finish. But, here we are.

Leaving Chatsworth, our next stop was a farm, which we walked through to come upon two Neolithic sites on the crest of some of the highest hills in this particular valley. The first was Arbor Low, a Late Neolithic henge from ca. 2900-2700 B.C. Approaching Arbor Low from the side, you come up to a steep mound of earth roughly 2 m high. Soon you realize that there are two entrances to this henge – openings in the earthworks that allow you to experience the enclosure in a certain way. Once inside, the raised earthworks give way to a ditch surrounding a circular area in the centre that is now home to large slabs of stone (known as orthostats) in roughly a circular arrangement. These were likely added a few hundred years after the original construction of the earthworks (themselves likely being accumulated over several periods of construction). There is no evidence of these stones ever being placed in the ground to stand upright. At some point after the original construction, one corner of the earthworks was turned into a burial mound and subsequently is now at a much higher elevation. In addition, several stones inscribed with “V.R.” are placed very close to the exterior edges of the henge – a relic of Victorian era antiquities legislation marking this site as significant to the national past and thus under the purview of the Queen.

Together we discussed the significance of the location and orientation of the feature (“ceremonial” being a continuous term in archaeology, as it has a history of being evoked as a catch-all phrase that translates roughly into “we don’t know what it was used for, so it has to be related to rituals and other intangibles). The notion that we all came back to was the way in which the horizon of the henge seems to reflect that of the valley surrounding it, and that, if you take the concept of Bronze Age divisional landscapes in the area into account, you could make an argument that while the henge was likely restricted to initiated individuals, any activity within the henge would have been visible from across the valley. This would likely be especially true with fires – everyone would know that something was occurring in this significant location, but would not be allowed to know what that was. Hence, instant sufficient mystery to form a basis for a religious group.

Nearby from Arbor Low lies a slightly older Neolithic burial mound that looks very similar to Mississippian mounds I’m experienced with in the American Southeast. Gib Hill is roughly 1000 years earlier than Arbor Low, and carbon-14 dates from material in the interior of the mound suggest that multiple individuals (an early nobility?) were buried within a relatively short timespan (20 to 30 years).