A Valentine's trip to the Tower

Last July I helped out at the Festival of Archaeology at the Tower of London with the City of London Archaeology Society (what a mouthful!). I had so much fun that day, helping to run the children's excavation. Kids are so enthusiastic about archaeology, and keen to learn (although sometimes disappointed that the bones they dug up were not dinosaurs!) To thank us for helping out we were all given a free ticket to one of the Historic Palaces. I picked the Tower of London, as I haven't been there for a very long time, and was keen to visit. I decided to go on Valentine's day this year, as a treat to myself :-)

What struck me when I first walked in was the size of the place. It was like walking out of the city of London, into another city. The clock had been turned back, and I had walked into another world, it was wonderful. The only unfortunate thing was it was raining. A lot. It made me realise why cobbled streets were designed, as I would had been walking through rivers instead.

Into the second city

I really loved the animals that had been placed around the Tower to demonstrate the collection of animals that had been kept here. Really beautiful pieces of artwork, and I felt it was tastefully done for the setting too.

A polar bear

and an elephant!

I felt it was slightly cheating to have the ravens locked in a cage, although on the plus side the Kingdom will never fall! They're pretty big birds, I'm not sure I'd want to be the Raven Master and have to feed them daily. 

It was a welcome relief from the rain to be able to explore the different towers, and there was so much to see. 

Exploring the White Tower

The very popular execution block

Up on the wall, a little damp and slippy!

It was great visiting the tower again, and learning about it's history. It's so amazing that such an big heritage place could sit in a prime location on the Thames, next to the City of London. 

I headed home to dry off, which unfortunately took around 4 1/2 hours due to the Valentine's  storms! Our poor train driver hit two trees, and stopped both times to get out and move them with the train guard. They were absolute heroes, I was so impressed with South West Trains that night. Then after the epic train journey I drove back to my village, to find that 3 out of 4 roads were completely blocked by fallen trees. It was a very exciting journey home, and a glass of wine was much appreciated when I finally got there! 

CBA London trip to UCL

I have to admit, going round the UCL collection made me a little bit jealous and wanting to do my degree again. I loved my time at Winchester and Oxford, but UCL just blew me away. I guess I'd take any excuse to go back to uni!

The amount of material the university holds is immense, and they hold objects from all over the world, apart from China, and North America - which is held by the Anthropology department. The idea is that students are handling objects as well as learning about certain time periods and cultures, increasing their knowledge and experience. I think this is a brilliant idea and I feel my archaeological education would have benefited greatly by being able to hold and examine pieces from excavations all over the world. Hands on learning is a great way to teach. Here are some photographs of the collection:

A Hand Axe from the Olduvai Gorge

A collection from Swanscombe

All the bones are laid out in different drawers depending on the animal, to help students identify bones.

The feline drawer

One of the artefacts Flinders Petrie donated to UCL

The trip was organised by CBA London group, and I really look forward to their next event. More information about the group can be found here: http://www.archaeologyuk.org/cbalondon/

More information can be found about the UCL Institute of Archaeology here, as well as access to their collection database: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/ The archaeology library is also very good, and somewhere I've used for preparing for interviews. For members of the public you have to demonstrate a need to use the library, and it costs £7 a day.