About 30 years ago, a shocking discovery was made at Jarrow… 70 boxes of animal bones were missing! It took until 2020 to find them, all the way up in Berwick. 

The boxes had multiple species of animals in them: sheep, chickens, ducks, cows – even a dog. The bones are all that’s left of the animals that lived in Anglo-Saxon Jarrow. There are chickens that the monks might have fed, and cows that grazed by the sea. They all have stories to tell.

Our current temporary exhibition, ‘Zooarchaeology’ tells us these stories through animal bones from Anglo-Saxon Jarrow.

The exhibition is free to annual passholders and is open from August to November 2025.