Lindow Manchester

Lindow Man at the Manchester Museum Blog 2010 in review

bryansitch — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 19:32:04 +0000

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is doing awesome!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 6,500 times in 2010. That’s about 16 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 10 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 91 posts. There were 8 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 10mb.

The busiest day of the year was March 24th with 77 views. The most popular post that day was Cartoon Strip Lindow Man.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were museum.manchester.ac.uk, facebook.com, egyptmanchester.wordpress.com, en.wordpress.com, and bigextracash.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for lindow man, man, the lindow man, mistletoe, and lindow woman.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Cartoon Strip Lindow Man February 2009

Graphic Killing of Lindow Man March 2009

Collective Conversation Comparing Lindow Man Exhibitions October 2008

Student Drawings of Lindow Man’s Death February 2009

Bog Bodies book April 2010

Alan Partridge and Bog Axe

bryansitch — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 12:28:03 +0000

Stephen Welsh kindly sent me a link to Mid Morning Matters, on U-Tube , by Steve Coogan’s comic persona, Alan Partridge, based around the idea of the 100 most famous Norfolk people. Horatio Nelson, Delia Smith and Egyptologist Howard Carter are in the list. Alan Partridge says Carter was responsible for Time Team (!) and a describes a conversation with Tony Robinson about re-animating a dead Saxon and finding out about what he had for his pudding before he was murdered with a blunt instrument in the year 5. It was only when Partridge mentioned a bog axe that I realised he must have been referring, in his characteristically muddled way, to Lindow Man! The whole thing is cringe inducing but hilarious. This is the link if anyone wants to check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wo0klNPrDk&feature=channel . The bog axe piece is about 6 mins 30 secs in.

Lindow Man talk to University of Manchester Archaeology Students

bryansitch — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:23:40 +0000

At the beginning of this term I met Andy Michaelas, a first year archaeology student at the University of Manchester. He was very keen to start up the students’ archaeology society again. He kindly asked me to give a talk to the students on the subject of Lindow Man.

Going over some of the earlier presentations I am reminded just how much material there is to talk about. If you look upon the exhibition as an exercise in public archaeology and you include the earlier exhibitions of 1987 and 1991 it is clear that the three ‘outings’ to Manchester provide a fascinating sequence of displays that shed light on changing attitudes, approaches and findings to and about Lindow Man.

Anyway the talk is in Mansfield Cooper in the University of Manchester tonight at 6pm Room 2.05 and I’m looking forward to it.

Lindow Man Exhibition on University Museum’s Website

bryansitch — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:16:47 +0000

An overview of the Manchester Museum’s Lindow Man: a Bog Body Mystery exhibition can be seen on the University Museums Group’s newly launched website: -

http://umg.web.its.manchester.ac.uk/2010/08/27/case-study-lindow-man-temporary-exhibition/

The case study gives a concise summary of the exhibition, its aims and objectives, refers to the criticism that greeted its opening and what we achieved.

The fact that we are still receiving enquiries about different aspects of the project is very gratifying. This morning I received an email from a PhD student at the Univeristy of Wales regarding Pagan involvement with archaeology and heritage, and the contestation of human remains. As the public consultation involved representatives from HAD (Honouring the Ancient Dead) I suspect we may be able to help the student concerned.

Lindow Man Exhibition and Public Consultation

bryansitch — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:09:15 +0000

I bumped into Sam Alberti on the stairs yesterday who pointed out that ‘we’ (him and me that is) were ‘all over the latest issue of Museum Practice like a rash’. It deals with consultation, co-authorship and dealing with criticism. There’s quite a lot of discussion about the Manchester Museum’s consultation with the public over the Lindow Man display in Rebecca Atkinson’s articles (July issue). Look at Creating Engaging Displays. Then the Case Study on Dealing with Criticism. Or Challenging Preconceived Ideas.

Lindow Man Wins British Archaeological Award

bryansitch — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 09:52:57 +0000

Stephen Walsh, Head of Fundraising and Development at the Manchester Museum, texted me yesterday afternoon to say that the Lindow Man exhibition had won in the ‘Best Innovation’ category at the British Archaeological Awards ceremony held at the British Museum. This was in respect of the work on engaging the public about the issue of human remains in archaeology and museums.

Stephen went down to London and received the award on behalf of the team that worked on the project. The British Archaeological Awards take place every two years so to some extent they are a retrospective on work that has already taken place.

The British Archaeological Award for best innovation won by the Manchester Museum

Over a year after the exhbition closed the project continues to attract interest and to win awards. It is only a week or so since I spoke about the unsuccessful Lindow Man repatriation campaign at the Restitution and Museums conference here at the University of Manchester. Students at this and other universities continue to interview us about the project for their dissertations. And we won the Design Week 2009 Best Temporary Exhibition award. As one of my colleagues said this morning, from this perspective Lindow Man is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Campaign Song Again

bryansitch — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:07:45 +0000

Here’s another blast from the past from the Manchester Museum Lindow Man files. But one that has a modern resonance because I spoke about the unsuccessful campaign at last week’s Museums and Restitution conference at the Manchester Museum.

I got a laugh when I said one of the now grown-up children who contributed to the Lindow Man exhibition really had been there, did do that and still had the t-shirt to prove it!

These children joined the campaign to repatriate Lindow Man’s body to the North West by recording a song, Lindow Man we want you back again (think Grandad we love you but with archaeological lyrics).

Susan Chadwick kindly lent us a photo, her t-shirt and one of her favourite toys from the time. I’ve never seen a tape or record of the song with the packaging so it would be great to see it if anyone out there still has a copy.

It’s a reminder if one were needed, as championed so ably at the Castleford Conference in 2005, that heritage assets should include the intangible elements of local views of place: things like stones, beliefs, ideas, traditions and oral history. To which we can attach songs and recordings and ephemera associated with campaigns and the like.

Lindow Man Exhibition Publication

bryansitch — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 13:54:01 +0000

I was out with a colleague from the Manchester Museum’s education team, Neil Dymond-Green, this morning to talk to pupils at St James’ Primary School about our new Ancient Worlds displays.

When I walked in my office there was a thick, new book on my desk still inside its wrapper and a pithy message on the outside from Jeff Horsley saying ‘The exhibition looks fantastic’.

I opened New Exhibition Design/Neue Ausstellungs Gestaltung 02 suspecting it was something to do with the Lindow Man exhibition. It’s always nice to open a brand new book, with that peculiar fresh smell of printing but even more of a thrill to find some rather nice images of Lindow Man displays taken by former colleague Bryony Bond.

There’s only a couple of short paragraphs by way of text. The book focuses on exhibition design so it’s what it looked like that’s important.

There are three pages of tasteful shots showing the innovative shelving, the biographies of the contributors and visitors interacting with the various sections. It’s all very atmospheric and brings back happy memories of the Lindow Man exhibition.

From now on I won’t have to scrabble about looking for images on the shared drive. I can simply refer them to this beautiful and thought-provoking publication. Thanks to Jeff for dropping this off.

Repatriation Campaign

bryansitch — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:10:14 +0000

Having signed up to giving a paper on the unsuccessful campaign to repatriate Lindow Man at next month’s Restitution Conference at the University of Manchester, I am revisiting my notes from 18 months ago in preparation. One of the people I’d have loved to meet when we were working on the exhibition was Barbara O’Brien who co-ordinated the campaign to bring Lindow Man back to Manchester back in 1987. She got support from local MPs but didn’t get the support she felt she should have had from museums and called off the campaign. She used to work for Granada TV but they couldn’t put me in touch with her. She used to live in Hale, Altrincham. Attempts to find her via the internet have met with a blank. I don’t even know if she’s still alive. If you’re still out there Barbara it would be great to talk to you.

Article about Lindow Man repatriation campaign (1987)

Lindow Man in Running for New Award

bryansitch — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:09:17 +0000

The Manchester Museum Lindow Man exhibition finished as long ago as April 2009 but recently we put it forward for a 2010 British Archaeological Award in the Best Archaeological Innovation category for the way it raised the issue of human remains with the public. The awards are made every two years and the last opportunity was shortly after the exhibition opening in 2008. Working with Stephen Walsh, who is Head of Fundraising & Development at the Museum, I put together an application and sent it off more in hope than expectation as they say.

We were all delighted when Sarah Howell at the BAA got in touch to tell us that our entry has made it to the top three! The full shortlist was published on the BAA website (www.britarch.ac.uk/awards) just a few days ago.

The British Archaeological Awards Ceremony will take place at the British Museum on Monday, 19^th July.

It’s great to have made it to the top three. Lindow Man won the Design Week 2009 Best Temporary Exhbition and was short-listed for a Museums & Heritage Award in the ‘Excellence for Educational Initiative’ category last year but didn’t win. It’s great that the exhibition is still generating interest in this way.