Welcome to this weeks JAMCam, where we are taking a look at whats been going on this week, as well as some of the finds we’ve recovered.
But first!
It’s not too late to book your ticket for this Months JAM Lecture, where Dr. Andrew Woods of the Yorkshire Museums trust will be taking us on an journey through the exciting world of Viking hoards, silver, money, and how this wealth effected the North.
Purchase your tickets fromn the Jarrow Hall website here.
Back to the updates.
We were joined this week by our friends from SAGE. They volunteer their time to help us with tasks across the whole museum, whether thats weeding the drive, daubing the walls of Thirlings, or helping to find unexplored Anglo-Saxon treasures.
Caption: We wizzed threough our findsprocessing backlog with Collections Offiver Ellie at the helm.
Caption: Wednesday loves a free lunch!
With SAGE we have also uncovered what is potentially another concrete barrage ballon tethering point.
Caption: Rough concrete is delicately being revealed to perhaps add additional insight to the war time activity in the park.
Our finds this week have been more on the personal side this week, giving glimpses into the lives of individuals.
Caption: Clay pipe stem with the makers finger prints.
For example, this clay pipe stem still bares the makers finger prints, captured forever in the clay. Something like this is an incredibly special find, as it reminds all of us of the Humans behind the artefacts; the men, women and children who laboured in workshops and factories producing the items we think of as commonplace.
Caption: a name plate for a house or business.
We also recovered this beautiful little address plate from a house or business right before pack-up on Thursday. It bears the surname Umpleby, with the address 179 Hope Street, which is a fine minute walk from the Museum Today!
The surname appears to be stamped, with the address handwritten or engraved. More research can be done to find out exacatly who this might of been, but we can say that this plate seems to have been prised off of whatever door it was originally attached to (and bent in the process), based on the deep scratches on its reverse side.
These personal finds are all that remain of people who might have slipped from living memory, which is why they’re so precious and valuable. Not to sound sentimental, but it is one of the great joys of archaeology to find these lost memories and bring them back into the light, even the ones that seem ordinary. We should all take it as a lesson as well that our ordinary lives are someone else’s extraordinary!
As part of the Council for British Archaeology Festival of Archaeology, JAM is running an Oral History Project on site from the 20th to the 31st of July (weekend not included!). We’ll be taking recordings of stories and information that you would like to share with us on site, as well as showing off some of finds from this and last year.
If you have memories of Jarrow and the people who have lived here before us that you would like to share with us to be preserved and used to teach future generations, come down to site, we want to hear from you.