Valentines Day – A look into our collections

This Valentine's Day, volunteer Bethany has discovered some items in our collection related to love. From the very sweet - to the very strange...   Folk Art in seeds! An unusual eighteenth-century folk art picture, composed almost entirely of seeds and probably depicting Darby and Joan. Set within an ebonised

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The Richards family: A research project

Hi, I'm Merryn and I'm currently working on a placement with Wiltshire Museum. I'm really interested in how our lives fit together, like jigsaw pieces assembling to form the bigger picture. I love History as a subject and I think Ancestry brings our past alive. It let's us tell and

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Remembrance Day

 Remembering all those who have fought and those who lost their lives during conflict. Letters Home During 2018, we embarked upon a 'Letters Home project'. Volunteers, local and far away, wrote letters home inspired by factual information about soldiers from Devizes who fought in the Great War and are commemorated

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International Women’s Day

We're celebrating International Women's Day and Women's History Month this March. Staff and volunteers have been researching famous Wiltshire women from all different walks of life - and have found some incredible stories. The Museum's own history and current existence owes a lot to the women who have (and still)

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Jomon Japan partnership visit – day 1 Tokyo

Day 1 – Wednesday 23 October After a long flight from London, we woke up in our hotel fronting the river in Tokyo. The day began with battling through the crowds of the Tokyo rush hour to start with a visit to one of the University museums - highlighting the

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Jomon Japan partnership visit – day 2 Tamagawa

Day 2 - Thursday 24 October Heading north to visit Neolithic sites  We missed the train that we were supposed to catch (the Tokyo rush hour is something else) which in turn meant that we missed the intended meeting with representatives at the Akita Prefecture Centre for Protection of Cultural

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Jomon Japan partnership visit – day 4 Komakino stone circle and Aomori

Day 4 – Saturday 26 October Woke up early and had a hot bath in the public baths attached to the hotel. We drove through fabulous autumn scenery to Hirosaki where we stopped to visit the medieval castle, built on 1609. This was the headquarters of one of the two

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Jomon Japan partnership visit – day 5 Sannai-Maruyama

Day 5 – Sunday 27 October We began the day by meeting the Mr Okada, Director of the Jomon-Japan World Heritage Site nomination office, based at the Aomori Prefectural offices. This was an opportunity to talk about the plans for the exhibitions and to exchange ideas and approaches to the

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Jomon Japan partnership visit – day 6 Niigata

Day 6 – Monday 28 October An early start and off to Nagoaka, in the Niigata Province towards the west. This was a long 5 hour journey and we arrived soon after mid-day. We went to the Nagaoka Museum, constructed on the edge of the Jomon period site where the

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Axe and dagger carvings on one of the sarsen trilithons at Stonehenge and the axe and dagger found at Bush Barrow.

Where did the gold from the time of Stonehenge come from? Analysing the Bush Barrow dagger.

The results are now in! Did the Bronze Age gold, found in a burial close to Stonehenge, came from Britain, Ireland or Brittany. Located close to Stonehenge, Bush Barrow is Britain's richest Bronze Age burial.  The most remarkable discovery was a gold-studded dagger pommel, set with thousands of microscopic gold

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