Sunday 9 September 2012

Crosby Garrett helmet to go on show

The Crosby Garrett helmet is to go on display at the Royal Academy in London from 15 September.

It will form part of an exhibition called bronze. It will be interesting if all the details of the find and the so-called conservation emerge as part of the show.

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4 comments:

Unknown said...

Fantastic. The piece is now on display in the country where it was found, the finder and land owner have been compensated, the object has been professionally conserved, all at no cost to the public.

An excellent example of the principles of personal property rights and free market working to everyone's benefit.

Of course Mr. Gill would have preferred that the helmet be left in corroded fragments, the finder been put in jail, the landowner lose a parcel of his land, a museum be built on the spot at public expense, and the data on the piece be published in the distant future by an archaeologist.

Paul Barford said...

Dr Gill, how could you?

(Though I agree about the proper publication. So how far off do you think that is for an object out of the ground already two years?).

David Gill said...

I am not sure that you could say that the helmet was "professionally conserved" (I have read the report describing the restoration preparing the helmet for the sale).

Paul Barford said...

It was 'reshaped' - so in what shape was it deposited in the ground? What, after over two years from its discovery do we know about its context of deposition? Where is the documentation, where is the publication of that documentation?

Or do we just assume that due to current policy, not only has a nationally important find been lost to a private collection, but also we have lost any chance of ever understanding its context because at no stage of the handling of it any kind of decent documentation was made?

If so, why are our colleagues remaining silent?

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