Visit to Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford

[Toadflax]

Following the Biblical Fire thread, there seems to be some interest in a BCUK visit to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. This is possibly the most extensive collection of anthropological artifacts in the UK.

Permanent displays in the Museum are ethnographic and archaeological and include the following:

Pacific island objects, including a magnificent Tahitian mourner's costume, collected during Captain Cook's Second Voyage in 1773-74; Hawaiian feather cloaks in brilliant shades of red and yellow; a wide range of handwoven textiles and looms; a collection of ceremonial brasses and ivories from the Kingdom of Benin; a fine group of early masks worn by actors in Japanese Noh dramas; more masks from Africa, Melanesia and North America; sculpture from all over the world in wood, pottery, metal and stone; boats, ranging from full-sized sailing craft to model canoes; baskets in all possible shapes and sizes; pottery from Africa and the Americas, including many pre-Columbian pieces; costumes from North America including Inuit fur parkas, Plains skin shirts decorated with porcupine quills, painted coats from the Northeastern Woodlands and a range of decorated moccasins; magic objects including amulets and charms; jewellery and body decoration; locks and keys; tools and weapons; musical instruments.

Items are typically organised by function, rather than origin so there are, for example, two cases dedicated to firelighting methods (including hand and bow drills, ploughs, saws, sawing thongs, flint and steels). Many of these have actually been used by the native peoples from whom they were 'collected'.

There is no reason why people can't go along individually (the museum is open every day) and entry is free (though you can make a donation) but a group visit seems a nice idea. Although I don't know if it will be possible, I'm pursuing a contact at the museum to see whether special visits for groups can be arranged, e.g. whether one of the curators could give us a more detailed tour of parts of the collection (e.g. firemaking artifacts).

If a visit were to be arranged, I'd have thought that the early months of the new year would be appropriate. I'll update this thread if /when I hear back about a specialised tour, but it would be useful to hear how many (if any!) people would like to go as a BCUK group - just so I know if it is worth pursuing. I'm guessing it would only be appropriate for those people who can make a day trip to Oxford, as I'm not aware of any wild camping sites close to Oxford (though there is a tent /caravan site on the outskirts).


Geoff

 

[Wayland]

I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it but I would add my recommendation to this museum. Not only is the collection fantastic but the museum itself is fascinating.

The thematic layout allows methods to be compared across worldwide cultures and show up amazing parallels while the displays are laid out in beautiful old cabinets with drawers full of even more artefacts you can examine underneath.

My all time favourite museum and in my line of work I visit a lot of them...

 

[wanderinstar]

Haven't heard of him for a while. But didn't that bloke who was going to camp in woods for a year use woods near Oxford. Did they call him "ditchmonkey"?

 

[Toadflax]

Haven't heard of him for a while. But didn't that bloke who was going to camp in woods for a year use woods near Oxford. Did they call him "ditchmonkey"?

He is "falling rain" - hopefully he will see the thread and let us know if he is aware of anywhere. There is a site that allows open fires near the White Horse at Uffington, but that's about 20 miles from Oxford.


Geoff

 

[Jodie]

I'm for the Pitt Rivers expedition but not surprisingly would prefer a day trip.

It's definitely Ditch Monkey if we're talking about the guy called Hugh who lived in the
woods for a year while working in London - his avatar is a martini glass I think.
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8755
http://news.sky.com/skynews/video/videoplayer/0,,91134-ditchman_p4674,00.html
I think this is his new blog: http://www.off-grid.net/section/ditchmonkey/
Maybe we can go and visit him

Falling rain is / was also planning a year living out:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=25876

 

[rich59]

This sounds like fun.

 

[swyn]

You have to see the museum in daylight as it is deliberatly not over lit. Some of the more fragile items are behind curtains to stop deterioration by light as well.

Brilliant place to visit by all ages and you will have a facinating time there.

Swyn.

 

[Jodie]

If there's one thing I'm a massive fan of, it's low light levels. That sounds perfect.
Good for the exhibits and very relaxing for visitors.

Dim lighting also works well for pubs - nice dark wood, that sort of thing. I'm sure
we could find such a pub in Oxford...

 

[Toadflax]

Dim lighting also works well for pubs - nice dark wood, that sort of thing. I'm sure
we could find such a pub in Oxford...

Indeed we could. If you want to go on an Inspector Morse tour as well...or sit where JRR Tolkein used to drink.

I'm probably going to go a bit quiet on this at the moment while I follow up my contact at the museum. I'm thinking that if I don't start to get any useful response from the Museum by mid-January, then we'll just go for a standard public visit.


Geoff

 

[nobby]

Are you sure that it is open?
I went in August and the complete ethnographic section was closed for major building work and they didn't have a reopening date.

On the arrangement of collection by type; they have done this in the Museum of Scotland (?) , Edinburgh. One of the best museums I have ever been in although I never went beyond the ground floor (I'm not much interested post 1066) and they arrange their displays in this fashion.
The Roman Legionnary's messkit was particularly interesting and not far different to a Crusader cup and hexy stove.

 

[Toadflax]

Are you sure that it is open?

It is currently open - I went there last week! They are closing it again in July 2008 to create a new entrance to the museum, at which time it is likely to be closed for a few months. The museum web site has details of the building work closures.


Geoff

 

[Jodie]

I wonder if they have museum explainers there doing demonstrations of bow drills, fire
pistons and the like.

Given that we are a well defined group (ie from BcUK) it might be quite easy to ask for
a tour (I wouldn't mind paying or making a donation) even if your contact isn't able to get
back to you.

Either way I'm really looking forwards to it

 

[nobby]

I wonder if they have museum explainers there doing demonstrations of bow drills, fire
pistons and the like.

Given that we are a well defined group (ie from BcUK) it might be quite easy to ask for
a tour (I wouldn't mind paying or making a donation) even if your contact isn't able to get
back to you.

Either way I'm really looking forwards to it

I would doubt that there is anyone there who uses the stuff but a private tour would be a good idea. You might then be able to handle part of the collection.

 

[Bootstrap Bob]

I'm not aware of any wild camping sites close to Oxford (though there is a tent /caravan site on the outskirts).

Geoff

I seem to remember that 'Falling Rain' was trying to arrange a meeting around Oxford and he had looked into booking some pitches at 'Greenhill Leisure Park' just North of Kidlington. Only reason I remember is that it's only a couple of miles from my house. There's a good park & ride from Kidlington into Oxford too as I wouldn't advise trying to park in Oxford it's like

Oh and before anyone asks my garden isn't big enough for a BCUK gathering (unfortunately)

 

[Toadflax]

Since seeing the posting about the Chinook fire plane, I've been looking at some other articles on JSTOR. Some of them are really fascinating - especially when you see things like an article from 1889 that has hand drawn sketches and says "Apparatus for fire making in North Borneo...and presented to the Anthropological Museum of the University of Oxford". I /we can go and see these items at the Pitt Rivers.

This article had an interesting method of fire making that I haven't come across: "[he] often amused me by striking fire with a bit of broken crockery on a bamboo. He holds a long bamboo nearly upright, and taking a little of the scraped inside of bamboo in the hollow of his hand, and the crock between finger and thumb, he strikes a spark from the siliceous coating of the bamboo by one free stroke of the arm."


Geoff

 

[Buckshot]

This article had an interesting method of fire making that I haven't come across: "[he] often amused me by striking fire with a bit of broken crockery on a bamboo. He holds a long bamboo nearly upright, and taking a little of the scraped inside of bamboo in the hollow of his hand, and the crock between finger and thumb, he strikes a spark from the siliceous coating of the bamboo by one free stroke of the arm."

Ask BOD about that.
He got hold of that bamboo when we were out there in September.

Mark

 

[Toadflax]

OK - I've got a good reply back from the museum. They don't have anyone who knows much about primitive fire-making tools (they reckoned that we'd know more than they did) but they can give us a guided tour, with the features of the tour depending on numbers.

I give talks in the museum for up to 80 people, but these tend to be shortish, and inevitably don't allow us to move around. 20 people allows us to spend a bit longer and look at a few objects, less than that gives us even more options.

So, in some ways, it sounds like the less of us that go, the better.

They would prefer a weekday, as they have lots of family activities at weekends, so I suspect that if we were to go at a weekend, we'd just be going as ordinary visitors and probably wouldn't get a guide.

There is no charge, but they do have a donations box at the entrance.

The museum is open from 1000 to 1630, so I'd have thought that we could meet for lunch in Oxford then go the museum for the afternoon.

I would be thinking of trying to arrange the visit for late Jan /Feb 2008, so could I have some expressions of interest? If you are interested, could you please add your name to this list and let me know whether you could make weekday, weekend or both.


dgcalvert (weekend or weekday)



Geoff

 

[Jodie]

Weekends for me - with all my plant and ethnobotany excursions planned for next year
I don't think I'm going to be able to take many days off (looks for a smiley that is both
happy and sad ).

Sundays even better as, depending on the Saturday in question I might be doing my
History of Medicine course (which is fascinating btw, although I'm only popping in to a
few of the lectures cos it's on a Saturday morning!) - but if it's a Sat that loads of people
can make then I'm not too bothered about missing it.

How about we have elevenses or brunch and get more of the after-elevenses in the
museum? We can trough again at half four

I might take myself off to the Oxford Story first thing in the morning, which takes you
back in time to the origin of the uni, then travel further back in the afternoon...

 

[Toadflax]

I might take myself off to the Oxford Story first thing in the morning, which takes you back in time to the origin of the uni

No you won't. I'm sorry to tell you that it closed a couple of weeks ago.

Geoff

 

[Galemys]

This article had an interesting method of fire making that I haven't come across: "[he] often amused me by striking fire with a bit of broken crockery on a bamboo. He holds a long bamboo nearly upright, and taking a little of the scraped inside of bamboo in the hollow of his hand, and the crock between finger and thumb, he strikes a spark from the siliceous coating of the bamboo by one free stroke of the arm."
Geoff

Hi Geoff,

there´s a discussion about this firestarting method (´bamboo-spark´ or ´bamboo percussion´) kind of hidden in a thread about the fire thong:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10517

I found some pictures in Dutch etnological musea databases of firestarting devices that look like they were used with this method so you might be able to find such things in the Pitt-Rivers museum as well. Look for bamboo tubes with longitudinal scratches in the firestarting cabinets.

I´d love to come and visit the museum but it isn´t exactly around the corner for me.

Cheers,

Tom

PS are there anymore interesting JSTOR articles on firestarting? (I can´t access the articles on the site). Especially on sparks from bamboo or the Gaucho method described by Darwin (http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18127&highlight=darwin+fire)