Amazing Amulet Project with Langtree School

As the new VERVE Outreach and Activities Officer in the Education Team at the Pitt Rivers Museum I was delighted to welcome 70 Year 9 students from Langtree School to the Museum this week. They were visiting as part of the 'Amazing Amulets' project, a partnership between the Pitt Rivers Museum and Langtree School.

For this project all 140 Year 9 Design and Technology students visit the museum for inspiration, then work with jewellery designer-maker Kate Coker in school to each make their own copper amulet using the repoussé technique. The project will culminate in an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum on display from 6 June to 11 September 2016.

Langtree student sketching in the Pitt Rivers Museum © Pitt Rivers Museum

Langtree student museum amulet sketches © Pitt Rivers Museum

The students visited the Museum to gather ideas from their designs from artefacts on display.  They looked at the Amulets and Charms display downstairs in the Museum, including these examples:

Glass Amulet Eye 1885.3.4 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Sea horses from Melanesia 1923.87.340.1
© Pitt Rivers Museum

 Tunisian Hand of Fatima 1917.9.74 © Pitt Rivers Museum

 Italian cimaruta 1937.9.19 © Pitt Rivers Museum

They also looked at examples of repoussé metalwork on display.  Repoussé is the technique of ornamenting and shaping soft metal by hammering the reverse side.  Examples they saw on display include these beautiful artefacts:

Nigerian brass tray  1942.13.1089 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Brass treasure box from Ghana 1935.56.12
 © Pitt Rivers Museum

Priest's headdress from Ethiopia 1995.5.2
© Pitt Rivers Museum

Back in school the students will spend six weeks creating their copper pieces at school under Kate Coker's expert tuition.  They will learn to use a new material - copper - and a range of new tools for creating their design.  The first group of 70 students have already completed their amulets and we are looking forward to putting these on display in the Lower Gallery from 7 June 2016.

Sonja Allen, Head of Design technology at Langtree School, said: The Amazing Amulet project was a fantastic opportunity for our school and students to work alongside professionals from the Pitt Rivers Museum and Jewellery Designer Kate Coker.  This project gave students the opportunity: to conduct first hand research by visiting the museum to obtain knowledge/look at existing amulets, take photographs and produce sketches which were all used to inspire their own amulet designs, learn and use new metal practical work skills and techniques, create their own quality amulet and have their work on display.  All students found inspiration from different aspects of the museum but all created a quality amulet using the repoussé  and chasing techniques taught and are all very proud of their outcomes.

Beth McDougall
VERVE Outreach and Activities Officer

Japanese Children's Day

At the Museum we ran a day to celebrate Japanese Children's Day (Kokomo No hi) which falls on 5th May. Families were invited to come along and celebrate this annual Japanese tradition to celebrate children's health and happiness. It used to be called Boy's Day but this was changed in 1948 to incorporate girls too.

On the day parents hang a carp kite outside their home for each of their children in order to honour them.  The kites are based on Koi carp fish, which are known to swim upstream to fertilise eggs; so they represent determination and strength.  Parents fly these kites outside their home in the hope that their children will grow up to have these traits.  At the event families could make their own carp kite to take home, and you can try making your own at home, just follow this link. 

They also display little models of samurai warriors, which are given to a baby boy at birth and then displayed in the home each year to remind the boy of bravery, nobility and moral qualities of the great warriors.  Boys often wear samurai helmets on Children's Day as it symbolises strength and courage.  We have a few examples of these samurai models in the Museum.



Model suit of samurai armour 1884.31.30
 ©Pitt Rivers Museum

Model suit of samurai armour 1884.31.32
©Pitt Rivers Museum

Also on the day we had some Japanese storytelling by one of our fantastic volunteers Chris. He told three traditional Japanese stories to families. One story was about an old couple who found a baby boy in a peach and looked after him. When the boy grows up he wants to repay them so offers to fight a giant ogre alongside a dog, monkey and a pheasant!



Chris telling traditional Japanese tales in the Museum ©Pitt Rivers Museum

Carly Smith-Huggins

Families Education Officer

Organising the Education Handling Collection

My name is Rachael and I work in the Education Department of the Pitt Rivers Museum creating a database of objects in the education handling collection. This lively department is a new experience for me as my background is in collections care, which by necessity tends to have a quieter and more reserved atmosphere. Unlike a traditional museum collection that is assembled for research, display and learning, a handling collection is created so that visitors can physically handle objects and interact with them in a more direct and personal way.

Rachael modelling a replica Porcupine Fish Helmet
based on an original in the collection from Kiribati
in Oceania (1884.32.31) © Pitt Rivers Museum

Currently we have approximately 800 handling objects from all over the world. My work involves photographing each object then labelling or marking it with a reversible method called 'paraloid marking'. This means writing a unique number for each object on a layer of removable plastic. I then research each object and create a database record with an image and information about the object. I have catalogued 600 so far. 

Because it is a database of handling objects it needs to hold specific types of information that are useful for teaching and learning: what the object is, where it comes from, what materials it is made from, what it is used for and who might use it.  I also note anything interesting or unusual about the object that people might find interesting.  It needs to have information that the Education Department, and Museum guides and volunteers can use as a springboard for teaching and for conversations with our visitors and school groups. 

My favourite objects so far are a frog mask from Java and a replica Bronze Age axe: 

Javanese Frog Mask © Pitt Rivers Museum

Replica Bronze Age axe © Pitt Rivers Museum

I am here for another two months and in that time I will finish cataloguing the objects.  I will also be sourcing some more handling objects to complement the existing collection. 

Rachael Utting, Documentation Assistant: Education Handling Collection, Pitt Rivers Museum
May 2016