The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a voluntary scheme to record archaeological objects found by members of the public in England and Wales. Every year many thousands of objects are discovered, many of these by metal-detector users, but also by people whilst out walking, gardening or going about their daily work. Such discoveries offer an important source for understanding our past.

This website provides background information on the Portable Antiquities Scheme, news articles, events listings and access to our database of objects and images.

The new PAS website is just fantastic. Built by Dan Pett, ICT Advisor for the Scheme, upon Open Source technologies, it is everything a modern heritage data repository/provider could be. Data is enhanced through the use of 3rd party services and frameworks such as OpenCalais and Yahoo GeoPlanet.

The new website now holds a substantial number of artefact details which can allow for critical analysis on a large scale.

The database allows detailed numismatic searches as well as general searches, and provides results with XML, RSS, Atom, JSON, and CSV representations. Large photos of individual object, where available, are viewable in a lightbox directly from the results list. Data is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license, encouraging its reuse.

On individual artefact record pages, which are neatly laid-out, is the option to view a zoomable high resolution photograph of the object. Photos can also be downloaded. An interesting feature is the facility to leave comments on database records, which could be used for identifying objects, debating provenance, etc.

Other features include bibliographies, vocabularies, maps, conservation guides and a lot more. A lot of thought has gone into what kind of features people would find useful.

Visit the Portable Antiquities Scheme website and have an explore. If you use any PAS data for any research, be sure to let them know so they can collect statistics – the more using their data for research, the better.

A big well done to Dan for raising the bar in heritage data representation and access.

An increasing amount of information is only published online, and as web pages change or are deleted, we are losing an important record of our history and culture.

Head over to the Guardian to read more.

The Wiltshire Heritage Museum library has just gone online with a digital library created in just 5 months using the controversial Google Books service.

The Library has been collecting books about the history, environment and archaeology of Wiltshire for over 150 years, and has many rare and important books in its collection of over 8000 volumes. Until now, the idea of getting the library online has been only a dream for librarian Dr Lorna Haycock. Without Google, it would have cost tens of thousands of pounds, buying a computer system, exhaustive data entry and only a few of the books could have been scanned electronically.

Museum Director, David Dawson explained that the controversial Google Books service has a ‘My Library’ facility, where you can simply click on a book that you have found on Google Books, and then add it to your own digital library. Work began in May this year to catalogue the entire library, using Google Books, and over 5,000 books have now been recorded. Many of them have already been digitised, and the full text of many can be searched online. He commented “as far as we know, we are the first library in the world to have created a digital library using the Google Books service. As an independent charity, we simply couldn’t afford to get our library online until Google Books gave us this fantastic opportunity to enable people to carry out their research online.”

The digital library has now been launched through the museum website – www.wiltshireheritage.org.uk. Everyone can now browse and search the library online – finding books that contain detailed information about where they live, or about the history of their family. Director David Dawson explains “people can then visit our library to read the real books, discovering the wealth of material that we have in our fantastic library”.

While they have not digitised the text from their books, this is a fantastic start, and clever thinking. Most of their titles can now be searched, and thanks to the Google Books digitisation programme (the ‘controversial‘ part) the content of many out-of-copyright titles can be searched or downloaded as part of the Google Books Library Project.

Visit the Wiltshire Heritage Museum Library to find out more.

And as an aside, I ought to mention the Wiltshire Heritage Museum’s YouTube channel, which, at the time of writing, does not have many views on its videos. Their short films are of excellent quality, professionally produced, and really watchable – just the right length, and many of them featuring Wiltshire’s most famous archaeologist – Time Team/Wessex Archaeology‘s Phil Harding, who is no stranger to being in front of the camera. Go there at once, and watch some of them! Or better still, visit the museum – something I’ve shamefully yet to do myself!

(note to self, visit Wiltshire Heritage Museum!)

I concur with your thoughts. I don’t think Wikimedia is, however, anything other than extremely naive not to have thought things through a bit better. That they couldn’t even respond promptly (allegedly) to original complaints by NPG is highly unprofessional and this in itself has lowered them in my esteem.

By and large I think the NPG’s response is balanced and correct. We should all be well aware by now that someone has to foot the bill for this quality of digitisation and delivery. It occurs to me that the ‘free, free’ mob is just as naive as WM in this regard.

Perhaps Wikimedia Foundation Inc could do what they did for Wikipedia last year and have a high profile campaign to raise money, but specifically for organisations to digitise and make available some of their content by way of return? I also don’t see any reason why WM needs to host such high res images; a decent image doesn’t have to be art catalogue quality and a link to the zoomify image on the organisation’s own website would surely suffice in the bid to ‘open up access’.

There is an active discussion going on on the Museum Computer Group and also the Museum Copyright Group which some have lamented as indicative of the lack of cohesion inherent in the museum/heritage/cultural sector on issues of access vs. the need for income to fund projects.

Some have said, well as they are publicly funded, they should make all this available for free. But who should pay? The very people who advocate this radical stance must enjoy taking their wage packets home at the end of the month and are not, as far as I can see, willing to give up their jobs for the greater good?

And in any case should we now question the motives of Wikimedia administrators who say they are doing this for the greater good of providing the sum of human wisdom to the world for free?

Whatever the legal rights and wrongs of all this two things are clear: in all acts, even ones purporting to be for the greater good need to be honourable and this one clearly was not, whether through naivity or not. Secondly, those who campaign for absolute open access to everything for free really need to start coming up with new arguments for how this could be made possible, assuming for now that the State is not going to suddenly decide that this is more important to support than propping up corrupt banks and over-bloated businesses.

Edit: I have just received an email from an anonymous person from Wikipedia Belgium wishing to point out the exact difference between Wikimedia Foundation Inc who ‘own’ (is this the right word?) Wikipedia and other projects like Wikimedia Commons. I have slightly adjusted the phrasing of the paragraph above regarding fundraising to clarify. I had appreciated the difference but had not expressed it clearly enough before so I hope this helps.

I was rather disappointed to have received this response to my post privately, which itself misunderstood what I was suggesting, as it means I cannot publish it here with my response, but I can say that I hope this anonymous individual will maintain a correspondence to make very clear a) what his/her opinion is and b) how projects like Wikimedia Commons can work more openly _with_ organisations like NPG so conflict like this doesn’t have to arise again. I can say, however, that the individual cited the Bridgeman Art Library vs Corel case in the US in his/her response, to which I replied that the ruling does not apply as a UK precedent as many of us who have been involved in collections digitisation realised a long time ago.

…
I have since received a further response and will be respecting the individual’s privacy as one can understand that in the current circumstances they would prefer it this way. I would, however, like to thank him/her for expressing their own personal thoughts about this case. I have been reminded that the nebulous network of people like Wikimedians don’t always in themselves agree about the best way to do things and there has been disappointment amongst other uses in the way the NPG images were reused, which were contrary to the terms and conditions NPG applied to their content. There is also a genuine desire to work more closely with organisations to make their content available through such initiatives as WM Commons and there have been examples of this, e.g. Wikipedia Loves Art and Wiki Loves Art. While content is usually sought on a gratis basis, there have been instances where illustrations have been paid for, and these are supported by the Philip Greenspun project.

So it’s been good to get some of these things aired. Wikimedia Inc has challenged the way we present our information in all its projects and it is perhaps not a bad thing that this conflict, which we all hope can be resolved amicably and quickly, has happened as it will at least give people and organisations pause for thought when undertaking digitisation projects, asking perhaps more obviously, who are we doing this for, why, and is this the best way?
Edit

Without further ado, introducing… Archaeopix!

The homepage features a photo of the day, which we hope to update daily. Clicking “Search” on the navigation bar takes you to the tool where you can look for CC licensed images which have been posted to a hand-picked series of groups and accounts on Flickr:

This is what Alun has to say about the search tool:

The clever bit is the search page.

Searching Flickr can be hit ‘n’ miss. Generally if you want to use a photo for a blog or educational handout and you need it quickly, it needs to be licensed under a creative commons licence. You can search on Flickr for cc-licensed photos, but a search for “Rome” will bring up everything with Rome in it. Groups are handy because they’re themed. So you could search the Archaeology group for Rome. The problem then is that you’ll find a lot of ©opyright photos. You really need a group which is all cc-licensed. Chiron is a good example of that. However Chiron’s strength is that it focuses on the classical world, which means you won’t find prehistoric Europe in it, or anything Mayan. This is where Archaeopix search comes in.

Head over to Alun’s Archaeoastronomy blog to read more about Archaeopix.

Link: Archaeopix

I would like to see the relationship develop more as that between supporter/donor and custodian, rather than just producer and consumer.

In response, Collections Trust made an interim response. And here is a summary my response to the interim response. I attempted to take the long view, looking back at my own experiences with digitised collections and other content. My full reply and Nick Poole’s (CEO Collections Trust) response can be read in the list archives of jiscmail’s Museum Computer Group list.

The report is to be highly commended, in my view. It conveys most of the must crucial problems that cultural organisations have faced in the 7-8 years of digitisation, of whatever form, but particularly collections, of museum, library and archive content. However, this is a positive report which also brings to inescapable attention the strength of digital culture in the UK and the fundamental role Culture has to play in a Digital Britain.

While I have significant problems with the way in which the language of cultural politics, for want of a better term, is so severely entrenched in economics, these are more philosophical than practical. If we are to be understanding our work as part of a ‘Digital Economy’ then we need to be very clear about a) what economy means and b) what is the quid pro quo?

However, I do admire the persistence in using the kind of language that the current government seems to understand to the exclusion of all else. In other words, to make them listen, one has to speak in their own tongue.

Nevertheless, I hope there remains a strong sentiment within the sectors concerned that cultural heritage is important for the ‘well-being’ (alas, another buzz-term which is just about to be abused in the Education sector) of a civilised society for its own sake particularly in relation to promoting cultural organisations as ‘safe spaces’ within which to better understand social and political issues. As collections-holding institutions were themselves born out of a desire to conserve the sum of human knowledge through papers, artefacts and books, what better raison d’etre in the Digital Age.

My few specific points of criticism and questions are:

.Use of case-studies

I hope a fuller report might highlight more non-national projects, and also be more open about the legacy of, for example, the content creation side of People’s Network and what is being done to remedy this. So much fantastic information was digitised which still remains online but difficult to access in any meaningful way. However, I do know that in their localities especially, these resources are being used in the kind of digital skills training that is referred to in the report. It was certainly something I started up immediately after the launch of the Hantsphere project (a New Opportunities Fund project), itself part of, an albeit loose, alliance of projects across South East England (http://www.sopse.org.uk/). There are so many other examples.

.Digital rights, income, access

This, for me, was the most important part of the report. The plea for a more balanced approach is essential, indeed it is fundamental to creating the kind of digital content that is meaningful and has high impact, particularly in the light of then creating APIs and using other methods of exposing content to WWW more efficiently.

I would like to see overt and practical support for small to large organisations to adopt micro-donations as a way of providing an income. See what it did for Wikipedia and the US Presidential Election of Barack Obama.

I think this will not only provide more income than many current IP and reproduction protocols (which themselves need review) but will also improve and strengthen the relationship between users and organisations.

I would like to see the relationship develop more as that between supporter/donor and custodian, rather than just producer and consumer.

.More practical grass-roots support for smaller organisations

All organisations, particularly smaller ones need practical help, both in person and online if they are to succeed (not just survive) in the so-called Digital Economy. Yes, strategy and consultations are important. Yes they often get unfairly demonised as wastes of time. However, if strategy is more visible than action, no one will take their roles and responsibilities as seriously as they perhaps should.

Particularly with regard to the legacy problems of early digitisation projects, where organisations did not sustain staff or other resources to maintain a resource, this kind of support for the ‘core staff’ who are left holding the baby is really very important.

If standards and a good /brand/ are so important then the best way to achieve these is to provide the requisite support at a national level.

Despite the criticism from some of the more vocal members of the museum technology community, I stand by my previous post in that I can’t help but like the idea of the Creative Spaces project.

Why will people like it?

I think people (i.e. ‘normal’ users, not museums professionals per se) will like it because:

• It encourages users to interact with the museum spaces and objects within
• It fosters a sense of connection with the museum, which, in my unscientific experience, people like
• It is an online space endorsed by the museums and galleries themselves, so it’s ‘safe’
• You are free to do what you like on the site – sign up to groups, create notebooks about things you find interesting, comment on other notebooks and items within, etc.

It will, of course, only ‘work’ if a genuine community builds up around and within the website. Getting people to use it shouldn’t be a problem. I don’t know the exact visitor numbers for the nine museums involved with the pilot, but it’s certainly in the millions. Something as simplistic as a sign reading “Interact with this museum online. Share your experiences on Creative Spaces.”, displayed in prominent physical as well as virtual spaces ought to do the job. Maybe a place to have an experiment with QR codes too.

Homepage

Much of the criticism (e.g. Mike Ellis, New Curator) about Creative Spaces is that people have, when faced with the homepage for the first time, not known what to do, or how it will benefit them. This is generally true. It’s hard to design the perfect homepage (believe me, I know!), but I can suggest some improvements.

Firstly, we need people to know immediately what the site is all about. Currently we have: “Connecting with your favourite Museums! Creative Spaces connects you with nine UK national museums and galleries allowing you to explore their collections, find like-minded people and create your own content.”

Maybe it could be ““Interact with museums and galleries. Upload your own experiences. Search the collections of 9 museums. Connect with like-minded people. Expand your visit online.” This explains why I might want to create an account and get involved – I don’t want to “create my own content”, I want to upload my stuff to share!

Those big buttons could do with a very short description (click to see a larger version):

(as I write this, Frankie has written echoed some of my ideas, and had some great new ones)

Should Notebooks be called Notebooks? They’re more like your own collection. Whichever way it is done, I do think that it could be a tad clearer.

URLs

However, on the sign, you would have to display a URL. It would make sense to make this a single, memorable URL. I confess to being somewhat confused as to why there are so many URLs – one for each participating insitution:

 The only difference I can see when looking at these sites is the “Popular collection items” display. Perhaps a gateway page with a single URL would be an option, say at creativespaces.info (which is available, and easy to remember)? You could select which museum you wanted to see popular items from. There are many ways of doing this – I hope the stakeholders explore some of them.

Search

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I did find the search facility to be somewhat lacking. It’s great for casually browsing objects by keyword, but like many people, once you can see the power of a cross-collection search that previously (to the best of my knowledge) didn’t exist, I want more.

I found it very hard to locate objects that have an Iron Age date, for example. If I was to use this in an educational context I’d like to see a few more options in the search, such as provenance, period, and location.

In the search results, clicking “View larger image” opens a new browser window showing the result from the institution’s own website, which in turn often requires another click to view a larger version. If this could be integrated in a better way, that would be great (but it’s a start). Maybe using a “lightbox” style effect (using jQuery, for example) to float the detail page over Creative Spaces might make it seem slightly better integrated?

RSS

I’d like to see personalised RSS feeds for notebooks and groups. This would allow me, as a slightly more tech-savvy user, to display my Creative Spaces content elsewhere, such as here on Past Thinking, or even in Facebook.

Beta & User Help Forums

If the site is going to be in “beta”, it ought to be described somewhere on the site what this means in layman’s terms. Frankie Roberto suggested needs to be some kind of help forum (like GetSatisfaction). This should be separate from the “Groups” (as it wouldn’t be about museum/gallery content, but about the website itself), that is looked after by the Creative Spaces staff. They can listen to suggestions, and inform people of forthcoming changes. Communication needs to work both ways if there is a community involved.

Conclusion

Creative Spaces is in beta. Things will change as more people use the service, and those who designed it learn how it is used, and where its limitations lie. Any amount of user testing is no match for thousands of people trying to actually use it. It’s the approach Flickr took, and some radical changes have occurred there too over the years (for good or for bad – you can’t please everybody). They listened to their users.

With a better homepage, I think this could really work. Once that is improved, and people can see straight away why they would want to use Creative Spaces, it will gain more users, and begin the evolution of the beta site into a strong, vibrant community of, as the BBC put it “Museum lovers”.

Here’s to its success!

[Update] Mike Ellis’s post on his Electronic Museum blog has a really good conversation going on in the comments. It’s really worth heading over there to catch up on who’s saying what.

lamusediffuse proposes the use of Social Web tools for the inclusion of not-dominant cultural expressions in the scopes of culture diffusion on the Internet. Accordingly with this objective, the project “Museums in Libya” is focused on two starting facts, the first is the lack of information about Libyan museums available in the website of the International Council of African Museums (AFRICOM) and the second is the apparent lack of museum websites in this country.

Their approach seems pretty much spot on to me. Set up and carefully tend Flickr and del.icio.us accounts, blog (about the phenomenon of interacting with museums using the social web), have a wiki, publish presentations on Slideshare.

I hope that this approach works well for them – it will be an interesting experiment to see if they can lift their museums from relative obscurity. I’ll certainly try and keep up with their project – it’s exactly the kind of approach that I evangelise about.

You can subscribe to Historyscape via this RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Historyscape

Alun is using Yahoo Pipes and Feedburner to create the service. Details about how he did it are also available.

This is a great example of why it is important for heritage organisations to make their data available via web services – you can get people doing amazing things with your data. The possibilities would be endless.

Mia has also pointed out that there is now a Museum of London Flickr group as the museum now permits photography. It’s great to see this happening – museums opening up, and encouraging interaction. The Museum’s ‘official’ Flickr account (MoL_Learning – “Molly“) is also well worth a look.

Latest 2 events at the Museum of London (live from their RSS feed):

Docks in wartime
Hear about the drama and devastation of the docks during wartime. Discover the impact of the Blitz and 'Black Saturday' and learn how the docks helped prepare for the D-day landings.<p>Date: 31 July 2010. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/F9FBmYGGFgQ" height="1" width="1"/>

The art of...archaeological illustration
Celebrate the Festival of British Archaeology with a course! This series of five-one day workshops is lead by Museum of London illustration specialist, Sandra Rowntree, and will appeal to both newcomers and specialists alike. This is an opportunity for participants to practise their drawing skills within a supportive environment and to learn about the equipment needed and the conventions used in the illustration of archaeological objects, including scaled drawings and drawing for publications. The small class size means that participants will be able to interact freely with both the tutor and fellow students to generate an exchange of ideas and maximise learning. All materials are provided, but feel free to bring along your own pens if your have them. You will be given a booklet covering the content of the course and a booklist to take home with you, as well as receiving a certificate of attendance. Each day focuses on a different type of archaeological find: medieval tiles (July 31); iron (August 7); bronze (August 14); Roman pottery (August 21); flint tools (4 Sept). Mornings will start with an introduction and demonstration by Sandra, followed by a drawing workshop, and afternoons will be spent learning about side views, sections and inking in. You can enrol for one or two days only, or for the entire course. There is a discount for participants who wish to enrol for all five days. A trained artist, archaeologist and teacher, Sandra has worked at Museum of London Archaeology as a Senior Illustrator for over five years. She started her career at English Heritage and since then has taught archaeological illustration to adults for Newcastle and Cambridge Universities' extra-mural departments, as well as working in Africa and Europe on excavations, working full-time and gaining her Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. <p>Date: 31 July 2010. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/dXQ110JlT1o" height="1" width="1"/>

Traditional crafts
Join a representative from the Girl Guides to learn more about our special exhibition and create your own craft pieces.<p>Date: 31 July 2010. <br />Times: 12:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/BZ8B8JsTpTE" height="1" width="1"/>

Punch and Judy
Come and join in with this popular Victorian entertainment.<p>Date: 01 August 2010. <br />Times: 13:00; 14:00; 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/mamEQvcJh28" height="1" width="1"/>

Withnail & I (1987), 15
Two out-of-work actors from Camden exchange squalid city living for a holiday in the countryside. Starring Richard E. Grant.<p>Date: 01 August 2010. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/nWb0nDC4cgk" height="1" width="1"/>

London, sugar and slavery
Uncover London's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade with this thought-provoking tour.<p>Date: 03 August 2010. <br />Times: 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/sgkVj2uJ92I" height="1" width="1"/>

Soundtrack for London
Throughout its history, London has constantly changed. New people arriving after the Ice Age, the Romans invading, a new Queen coming to the throne or people moving to the city and making it their home. Come and create a dynamic soundtrack for this vibrant city.<p>Date: 03 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/tjf6GEcb3ps" height="1" width="1"/>

Soundtrack for London
Throughout its history, London has constantly changed. New people arriving after the Ice Age, the Romans invading, a new Queen coming to the throne or people moving to the city and making it their home. Come and create a dynamic soundtrack for this vibrant city.<p>Date: 04 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/tjf6GEcb3ps" height="1" width="1"/>

Tolerance in Diversity
See a film produced by young people from Tower Hamlets looking at racial tolerance in East London since the murder of Altab Ali in the late 1970s and join the discussion that follows. Working with the Museum of London, students have looked closely at Ali's murder and how racial attitudes have changed in London since. This short film was created as a response to their investigations. Following the screening there will be a discussion on tolerance and diversity in the capital. <p>Date: 04 August 2010. <br />Times: 18:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/PsQtlBcecGs" height="1" width="1"/>

Growing up in uniform
In association with the current Girl Guides exhibition, Curator Jim Gledhill explores the history of uniformed youth movements in London from the end of the Boer War to the beginning of World War Two. Movements looked at will include the Girl Guides, the Scouts and the Kibbo Kift - a woodcraft and camping movement of great social and political importance between the world wars. This talk will offer the opportunity to see related objects from the Museum's collection.<p>Date: 05 August 2010. <br />Times: 13:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/CFwLh_HZU7A" height="1" width="1"/>

Nancy, the water seller
Meet Nancy, one of many poor Victorian Londoners. Since the age of five Nancy has lived on the streets, making a living by selling water to passers by. Learn about the problems she faces and how she manages to look after her own children. With kind permission of the Science Museum. <p>Date: 06 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30; 15:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/nnCEAmfSIMM" height="1" width="1"/>

Victorian poverty
Join curator Beverly Cook to learn about the lives of London's poor in the second half of the 19th century. This tour will explore, through objects on display, how London struggled to provide adequate housing, clean water and basic sanitation for its growing population. <p>Date: 06 August 2010. <br />Times: 14:45<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/fbnNrkzmBps" height="1" width="1"/>

Sailor's 1000 stories and puppet making
Join us for a fun story and turn your favourite character into a puppet to take home with you.<p>Date: 07 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/Zgf5g3N_mng" height="1" width="1"/>

The art of...archaeological illustration
Celebrate the Festival of British Archaeology with a course! This series of five-one day workshops is lead by Museum of London illustration specialist, Sandra Rowntree, and will appeal to both newcomers and specialists alike. This is an opportunity for participants to practise their drawing skills within a supportive environment and to learn about the equipment needed and the conventions used in the illustration of archaeological objects, including scaled drawings and drawing for publications. The small class size means that participants will be able to interact freely with both the tutor and fellow students to generate an exchange of ideas and maximise learning. All materials are provided, but feel free to bring along your own pens if your have them. You will be given a booklet covering the content of the course and a booklist to take home with you, as well as receiving a certificate of attendance. Each day focuses on a different type of archaeological find: medieval tiles (July 31); iron (August 7); bronze (August 14); Roman pottery (August 21); flint tools (4 Sept). Mornings will start with an introduction and demonstration by Sandra, followed by a drawing workshop, and afternoons will be spent learning about side views, sections and inking in. You can enrol for one or two days only, or for the entire course. There is a discount for participants who wish to enrol for all five days. A trained artist, archaeologist and teacher, Sandra has worked at Museum of London Archaeology as a Senior Illustrator for over five years. She started her career at English Heritage and since then has taught archaeological illustration to adults for Newcastle and Cambridge Universities' extra-mural departments, as well as working in Africa and Europe on excavations, working full-time and gaining her Certificate of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. <p>Date: 07 August 2010. <br />Times: 10:15<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/dXQ110JlT1o" height="1" width="1"/>

Walking the Roman wall
Follow the Roman wall of the City of London and trace where it still exists, both overground and underground.<p>Date: 07 August 2010. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/9ftUhkIx-wk" height="1" width="1"/>

Meet Jonathan Tyres
Meet the man behind Vauxhall Pleasure Garden and hear about how he influenced leisure time for many Londoners in the 18th century. <p>Date: 08 August 2010. <br />Times: 11:00; 13:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/B7AfFnxeB7c" height="1" width="1"/>

Meet Jonathan Tyres
Meet the man behind Vauxhall Pleasure Garden and hear about how he influenced leisure time for many Londoners in the 18th century. <p>Date: 08 August 2010. <br />Times: 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/NCmX2K51R0Q" height="1" width="1"/>

Vocaleyes
By focusing on key objects, explore Docklands history in this gallery tour for visually impaired visitors.<p>Date: 08 August 2010. <br />Times: 15:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/DuxSaab54P8" height="1" width="1"/>

Soundtrack for London
Throughout its history, London has constantly changed. New people arriving after the Ice Age, the Romans invading, a new Queen coming to the throne or people moving to the city and making it their home. Come and create a dynamic soundtrack for this vibrant city.<p>Date: 10 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/tjf6GEcb3ps" height="1" width="1"/>

Soundtrack for London
Throughout its history, London has constantly changed. New people arriving after the Ice Age, the Romans invading, a new Queen coming to the throne or people moving to the city and making it their home. Come and create a dynamic soundtrack for this vibrant city.<p>Date: 11 August 2010. <br />Times: 12:30; 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/tjf6GEcb3ps" height="1" width="1"/>

The belles of Bow
This walk follows in the footsteps of Sylvia Pankhurst who chose East London as the starting point for her campaign for women's suffrage. East End women were key to the success of the Suffragette movement. This walking tour highlights Suffragette supporters and their workplaces including the famous Bryant & May Match Factory, site of the Match Girls' Strike of 1888.<p>Date: 11 August 2010. <br />Times: 14:30<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/E8ryBYWWepQ" height="1" width="1"/>

Roman amphitheatre
Visit the remains of London's only Roman amphitheatre with curator Jenny Hall. See the excavated remains of the amphitheatre preserved beneath the Guildhall Yard. Learn about the history of the site and the archaeological evidence for its later occupation. Each ticket includes a guided tour and entrance to the Guildhall Art Gallery.<p>Date: 12 August 2010. <br />Times: 14:00<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MuseumOfLondonGroupUpcomingEvents/~4/nx59FYeV67k" height="1" width="1"/>