Dickens Calendar 12

Dickens events

Dickens Calendar 12

The Connect10 Vote: You choose where Claire Barclay goes for Museums at Night | Culture24

The Connect10 Vote: You choose where Claire Barclay goes for Museums at Night | Culture24

Vote for the Old Operating Theatre Museum.

Open windows could help beat superbugs, says expert - Science - News - The Independent

Open windows could help beat superbugs, says expert - Science - News - The Independent

belzoni - removal man

The following is from Salon IFA 270 13 Feb 2012

Books by Fellows: Belzoni: the giant that archaeologists love to hate

Salon is very grateful to our Fellow Peter Clayton for the following review of the new book by our Fellow Ivor Noël Hume, Belzoni: the giant that archaeologists love to hate (ISBN: 9780813931401; University of Virginia Press).

It is over half a century since the last good book on Giovanni Belzoni was published (Mayes, 1959). Here, written by a noted archaeologist and former Director of Colonial Williamsburg archaeological research programme, is a splendid and up-to-date story of the, literally, giant (2m tall) and pioneer Egyptologist. Many writers of recent years have had a tendency to denigrate Belzoni and his work, but Howard Carter wrote that his work in the Valley of the Kings was the first large-scale excavations in the Valley, and ‘we must give Belzoni full credit for the manner in which they were carried out … on the whole the work was extraordinarily good’. Belzoni’s detractors fail to recognise the ethos of the period in which he worked, and they should be mindful of Matthew 7:1 [‘judge not lest ye be judged’]. Noël Hume’s new biography puts Belzoni firmly in his place as a pioneer who really thought about his discoveries — he was no rabid collector like his rival Drovetti without any thought for interpretation or context.

From humble beginnings in Padua via the fairgrounds of Europe, fate cast him into Egypt where, against all initial adversities, he found a calling and followed it. Some of the finest sculptures in the British Museum, notably the colossal 7.5 ton head of Ramesses II, and much else, the sarcophagus of Seti I in Sir John Soane’s Museum, the lid of the sarcophagus of Ramesses III in Cambridge, are all due to his endeavours. Added to that, he retrieved the Philae obelisk for William John Bankes (now at Kingston Lacey) whose inscription was to be vital in Champollion’s decipherment of hieroglyphs in 1822. He was the first European to enter the Second Pyramid, of Chephren, at Giza, and the first to find the entrance to the Great Temple at Abu Simbel and, five years before Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs, realised that the ‘hero’ depicted on the walls there was the same he saw in Thebes, i.e. Ramesses II.

Noël Hume brings Belzoni to life in his own words and the world in which he carried out his explorations, and adds much new insight into that life as well as his own pertinent observations. He particularly puts more flesh onto the person of Belzoni’s long-suffering but devoted wife, Sarah. It is ‘S..’s Law’ that on excavations the best finds turn up on the last day, and Noël Hume has been similarly bedevilled. Belzoni died at Gato in Benin in 1823, and Sarah in Jersey in January 1870. Mayes (1959) did not know where she was buried and both Noël Hume and the reviewer (unbeknownst to each other) have for years been trying to locate her grave via Jersey local newspapers, radio and personal contact, to no avail. As, literally, the book was finished and published word came that her grave and inscribed tombstone had been found (see ‘Postscript’). Now the chase is on for details of how and who provided for her burial. Egyptological research, even after a couple of centuries, always has surprises and goals to pursue.

Postscript. Several people have searched for the grave of Sarah Belzoni in Jersey but recently, by a happy case of serendipity, Anna Baghiani (Education Officer with the Sociétié Jersiaise St Helier, Jersey) stumbled on Sarah’s name in the records of the Channel Islands Family History Society in the Jersey Archive. It was an erroneous entry by an unknown subscriber but it provided a date and place of burial. With the help of Vic Geary, the cemetery supervisor who held a detailed plan of the cemetery from the time, she and Dr John J Taylor (Tutor in Egyptology) were able to find the grave. John Taylor had walked past it many times on bright sunny afternoons when it was in deep shadow, but on a sunny morning the inscription became partly visible, and there was no doubt of it reading: ‘Sarah, widow of Giovanni Baptista Belzoni’. The original small foot stone reads: ‘S. B, 1870’. Permission is now being sought to clean the stone and restore the lettering. A photo of the grave in sunlight is reproduced in Ancient Egypt, vol 12, no. 3, issue 69, December 2011/January 2012, p 16.

The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries – How to apply

The Long list for this year's Clore prize is here:

Camden Arts Centre, Get The Message
Florence Nightingale Museum, Our Generation's Re-interpretation
Jersey Heritage, My History Scrapbooks and Discovery Days
Leicestershire County Council Heritage and Arts Service, Held in the Hand and Touch Tables
Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Treasures from the Earth
The Geffrye Museum of the Home, Stories of the World: London
The Quilt Museum and Gallery, Unfolding the Quilts
The Whitworth Art Gallery, The Manchester Early Years Partnership
Victoria and Albert Museum, V&A Schools Team Collaboration with Seymourpowell
Yorkshire Museum, Celebrating Severus

IdeasTap: Connecting creative people, funding and ideas

IdeasTap: Connecting creative people, funding and ideas

Southwark historic maps on line

These are maps of southwark - listing all the listed buildings, conservation areas etc viewed imposed on historic maps dating back to 1896


Stratus Connect

Google Maps Mania: Mapping Your Photos with Google Maps

Listing of sites that geotag maps

Google Maps Mania: Mapping Your Photos with Google Maps

A Triple Tragedy: How Princess Charlotte’s Death in 1817 Changed Obstetrics « Jane Austen's World

A Triple Tragedy: How Princess Charlotte’s Death in 1817 Changed Obstetrics « Jane Austen's World

here is a more detailed description