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Dodos & Dark Lanterns

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Tells the story of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the world's first university museum, dating from the late 1600s.

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INTRODUCTION

In the 1600s wealthy and educated individuals across Europe compiled collections of natural and man-made rarities from around the world. These collections filled what came to be referred to as cabinets of curiosities, access to which was limited to members of the social and intellectual elite.

An exception to this was a cabinet, known as the Ark, which was the first of its type to be opened as a public attraction. It was formed by two gardeners, John Tradescant, father and son, and situated in their house at South Lambeth on the outskirts of London. Recognising its appeal and profitability, they admitted visitors of any age, gender or status for a fee of sixpence.

The rarities from the Ark were later acquired by a lawyer and antiquary named Elias Ashmole. Realising their educational value, he presented them to the University of Oxford as the basis of a public museum.

Since its establishment in 1683, the Ashmolean has evolved from a scientific institution, aimed at the advancement of the New Philosophy, into a museum of art and archaeology, intended to illustrate connections between cultures over time. In the process, it has promoted knowledge of subjects ranging from the origin of fossils to the history of civilisation.

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During the early years of the Ashmolean, one of the most hotly contested issues in academic circles was that of the origin of fossils. Scholars across Europe were discussing the true nature of these ‘formed stones’, as they were then called, and debating whether or not they were the petrified remains of once living organisms. Actively involved in these exchanges was a Welshman named Edward Lhwyd, who served as the second Keeper of the Museum. Through his contributions the Ashmolean became the birthplace of the scientific study of fossils, known today as palaeontology.

Lhwyd began his career at the Museum as an assistant to Keeper Robert Plot while he was still an undergraduate at Jesus College. One of Lhwyd’s tasks was to catalogue Plot’s collections, and it was through this process that he first became familiar with fossils.

These included a specimen of a sea urchin, found at Fulbrook, described by Plot in an influential book entitled The Natural History of Oxford-shire, published in 1677. While fossils such as this one were traditionally thought to have formed in the clouds, he proposed instead that they were produced in the ground by a ‘plastic virtue’, considered to be the crystallisation of mineral salts. He rejected the idea that they were originally organic and concluded that they were simply ‘sports of nature’ that just happened to imitate the shapes of animals.

Lhwyd attributed the sea urchin to Plot in a catalogue of the fossils in the Ashmolean, published in 1699. This landmark volume, entitled Lithophylacii Britannici Ichnographia, was the first book on fossils to be produced in England. Conceived as a field guide, it included accurate illustrations by Michael Burghers intended to assist with identification.

Fossils such as the sea urchin posed a challenge for Lhwyd, who struggled to explain how they got to where they were found, deep in quarries or high on cliffs far from the coast. According to one theory they were the remains of creatures deposited by the ‘Universal Deluge’, or Noah’s Flood. Lhwyd rejected this and proposed instead that they grew in the ground from the ‘spawn of marine animals’ that rose from the sea in mists and vapours and fell to land in rain and fog.

CLYPEUS PLOTI

J Clypeus ploti is a fossil sea urchin, or echinoid, dating from about 170 million years ago.

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By the mid-1700s some of the Ashmolean’s natural history specimens were in a sorry state. This is hardly a surprise considering that they had been on display for more than a hundred years. They were suffering from decay and damage caused by insects, as well as visitors, who ‘run here and there, grabbing at everything’.

Legend has it that during a period of neglect and mismanagement the decision was made to dispose of the specimens by tossing them onto a fire. At the very last moment, parts of one, a dodo, were rescued from the flames before the whole thing went up in smoke. While this dramatic event is mentioned in many historical accounts, there is no evidence to suggest that it ever actually occurred.

The specimens were examined at a meeting of the Visitors of the Museum held in 1755. They were found to be in poor condition and ordered to be removed from display. This was in keeping with one of the original statutes, which stated ‘that as any particular growes old & perishing, the Keeper may remove it into one of the Closets, or other Repository; & some other to be substituted’. In the case of the dodo, substitution was not an option, for the species was extinct.

LI The head and foot of the Oxford Dodo comprise the most complete remains of a single bird and contain the only surviving soft tissue. They have been used in DNA research, which has shown that dodos were related to pigeons.

OXFORD DODO7

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L Originally donated to the Ashmolean, this painting of a dodo by Johannes Savery now hangs in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

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During the 1800s the University consolidated its collections, spread throughout Oxford, and related them more closely to their respective

disciplines. This process of rationalisation had a devastating impact on the Ashmolean, which relinquished many of its contents and

received little in return.

Rocks and fossils were moved to the nearby Clarendon Building, previously occupied by the University Press, between 1830 and 1832. They accompanied the teaching collection of William Buckland, who later established a geological museum there. They were relocated together with the remaining natural history specimens to the new University Museum between 1860

and 1866.

Books, manuscripts, coins and medals were deposited in the Bodleian Library in 1860. Finally, ethnographic artefacts (minus those from the Tradescant collection) were transferred to the new Pitt Rivers Museum in 1886.

In exchange, the Ashmolean received rarities from elsewhere in Oxford. One such rarity is the lantern reputedly carried by Guy Fawkes, a conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, when he was apprehended in the cellars of Parliament House on the evening of 4–5 November 1605.

The Gunpowder Plot was hatched by a small group of radical English Catholics, who aimed to kill King James I, a Protestant, by blowing up the House of Lords on the occasion of the state opening of Parliament. Having received an anonymous tip, the King ordered the cellars of Parliament House to be searched before the event. Fawkes was discovered, lantern in hand, with thirty-six barrels of

gunpowder concealed under firewood. He was arrested and the plot was foiled. He was later convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

GUY FAWKES’ LANTERN12

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The infamous item at the Ashmolean is of a type referred to as a ‘dark lantern’, designed to conceal the light, if desired, without extinguishing the flame of the candle within. This makes it the perfect accessory for those, such as Fawkes, who are up to no good and don’t want to be caught in the act.

The lantern is composed of two cylinders of sheet iron, placed one inside the other. Both cylinders have rectangular sections cut out of them. The outer cylinder has a hinged door comprising a window set in a frame. The window was originally covered by a thin piece of horn, now lost. Once a lit candle was placed inside, the door was shut and the light shone through the window. To conceal the light, the outer cylinder was turned until the window was blocked by the side of the inner cylinder.

The lantern was donated to the University in 1641 by Robert Heywood of Brasenose College, the brother of a Justice of the Peace who arrested Fawkes. It was originally displayed in the Bodleian Picture Gallery, where it occupied a window-seat all to itself. It may have been handled by visitors, which would help to explain its poor condition.

Since its arrival in 1887, this rickety relic has been one of the Ashmolean’s most popular attractions. It forms part of a small but significant group of objects with historical associations that continue to connect the past and present in the most personal of ways.

J ‘Dark lanterns’, such as the one carried by Fawkes, were designed to conceal the light without extinguishing the flame of the candle within.

L Attached to Guy Fawkes’ Lantern is a plaque bearing an inscription recording its donation to the University in 1641.

II Guy Fawkes’ Lantern was first exhibited in the Bodleian Picture Gallery, which occupied what is now the Upper Reading Room of the Bodleian

Library.

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K The Great Gallery of the University Galleries was used to exhibit sculptures and paintings, including full-size copies of Raphael’s cartoons. The Raffaello Gallery next door was devoted to displaying the drawings from the Lawrence collection.

With a fund from the 3rd Earl of Eldon, set up in honour of his predecessor, the drawings were conserved and a catalogue of them was published by John Charles Robinson in 1870. The catalogue brought the drawings (and the institution that housed them) to the attention of an international audience. It is now considered a landmark in the study of the subject.

The drawings are stored today in the Western Art Print Room of the Ashmolean. They are accessible to the public by appointment.

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DODOS & DARK LANTERNS

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In 1861 John Ruskin, the author of Modern Painters, donated a series of watercolours by Joseph Mallord William Turner to the University Galleries. Ruskin’s intention was to demonstrate that there were contemporary artists whose work was comparable to that of Old Masters such as Raphael and Michelangelo.

Eight years later Ruskin was elected the University’s first Slade Professor of Fine Art. During his tenure he compiled a teaching collection of more than 1,400

drawings, prints and photographs for an art school that he established in 1871. This material was used to illustrate his lectures and exemplify good work for the students in his classes.

The Ruskin School of Drawing (now the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art) originally occupied the room on the ground floor of the west wing of the University Galleries. It remained there until 1976, when it moved to its current premises on the High Street.

Ruskin School of Drawing

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STUDY OF HEADS AND HANDS

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CHESTER SEAL

In the years that followed the opening of the University Galleries, the Ashmolean was threatened with closure as one collection after another was transferred elsewhere in Oxford as part of the process of rationalisation. In order to survive it had to find new relevance. Thanks to Sir Arthur John Evans, it developed as a museum of archaeology, with emphasis on the early civilisations of Europe, the Mediterranean and Near East.

Following Evans’ appointment as Keeper in 1884, new accessions were recorded at a rate of more than 2,000 a year. The source of many of these was Greville John Chester, a former parish priest who travelled widely in search of antiquities that he offered for sale or presented as gifts to the Ashmolean.

One such gift was a tiny seal presented by Chester in 1889. This seemingly insignificant item was to prove the inspiration for one of the most famous archaeological excavations in history, which would bring to light one of the greatest civilisations of the ancient world.

The seal consisted of a four-sided prism made of agate, dating from 1900–1800 BC. It was inscribed with symbols that Evans identified as signs of a script older than the alphabet. His initial work on the subject led him to look for further evidence of early writing from pre-classical Greece.

Evans found similar seals at antique shops in Athens in 1893. Informed by the dealers that the seals had come from Crete, he decided to visit the island for the first time the following year. There he searched for seals, known locally as galopetres, or milkstones, worn as charms by nursing mothers to ensure lactation. With such seals as proof, he was able to demonstrate the existence of pre-alphabetic writing in Crete.

This made Evans determined to purchase the site of Knossos, a prehistoric palace that he toured during his visit to Crete in 1894. When this site was acquired six years later, he began the excavations that would make him a legend in the field of Aegean archaeology.

I Small antiquities such as the Chester Seal greatly interested Evans, whose nearsightedness enabled him to see minute details with unusual clarity.

II Evans is depicted here sitting among a selection of finds from Knossos. He holds a tablet inscribed with Linear B, one of the three scripts he identified in Crete.

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MEDIEVAL MUG

In 1907 a local schoolboy named Thomas Edward Lawrence, known as Ned to his family and friends, presented a small ceramic mug with a human face to the Ashmolean. He had acquired it from a workman who discovered it while digging the foundations of a new building at a site on Cornmarket Street, previously occupied by a shop named the Civet Cat.

Lawrence had a passion for medieval archaeology and was often to be found searching for pottery fragments around Oxford in the company of his classmate Cyril Frederick Beeson. Lawrence would pay for finds out of his own pocket and bring them to the Museum, where he sought the opinion of the Assistant Keeper Charles Francis Bell, who shared his interest in medieval pottery.

While he was an undergraduate at Jesus College, Lawrence volunteered at the Ashmolean, which was then in a process of rearrangement following its reestablishment as a museum of art and archaeology. He helped the new Assistant Keeper Edward Thurlow Leeds reorganise the ‘somewhat heterogeneous collections of medieval

antiquities’. He also contributed to the related sections of a Summary Guide, printed in 1909.

That summer Lawrence travelled more than 1,000 miles through Syria and Palestine carrying out research for an undergraduate thesis on Crusader castles. He brought back seals to add to the collection of David George Hogarth, Keeper of the Ashmolean, who was to have a major influence on the course of his career.

I Lawrence (left) is shown here with Hogarth (centre) and

Alan Dawnay in Cairo in 1918.

K The mug presented by Lawrence to the Ashmolean is an example of Brill/ Boarstall ware produced in Buckinghamshire in

the 1400s.

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Ancient Egypt and NubiaIn 2011 the Ashmolean concluded a second phase of redevelopment with the opening of six new galleries of ancient Egypt and Nubia (present-day Sudan). Designed by Rick Mather Architects, these galleries complete the Museum’s Ancient World Floor, linking the early civilisations of Egypt, the Near East, Greece, Rome, India, China and Japan.

The Ashmolean’s renowned Egyptian and Sudanese collections consist of more than 40,000 artefacts compiled over more than 300 years. They include iconic objects such as colossal statues of the fertility god Min, which are among the oldest surviving stone sculptures in the world, and the Shrine of Taharqa, the only complete free-standing pharaonic building in Britain. They relate to famous Egyptologists, including Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and Francis Llewellyn Griffith, whose discoveries continue to fascinate visitors of all ages.

I Min statues

J The modern extension at the Ashmolean

was shortlisted for the prestigious Stirling

Prize for architecture in 2010.

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STATUE OF THE BUDDHA