Roman Society Museum Internship 2016: British Museum- Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory
I would first of all like to express my thanks to the Roman Society, the staff and volunteers at the British Museum and Richard Hobbs in particular for providing me with this fantastic opportunity to gain experience in a world renowned museum and for being so welcoming and friendly throughout my two week placement. It has always been my ambition to pursue a career in the museum sector and consequently I applied for this internship at the end of my second year of studying archaeology at Newcastle University.
Over the course of my two week placement I had the opportunity to complete a variety of tasks, allowing me to obtain new skills and gain an insight into many of the different jobs carried out in the museum. I spent my first day in The Weston Gallery adding artefact registration numbers to images in Richard Hobbs and Ralph Jackson’s book ‘Roman Britain: Life at the Edge of Empire’. I thoroughly enjoyed this task as it gave me the chance to explore the gallery in great depth. I then transferred the registration numbers to the British Museum’s database called Merlin. It was interesting to learn about the database that the museum uses and very useful to learn how to use the database and update parts of it. At the end of my first week Richard taught me how to use Photoshop to edit images of ironwork artefacts. I edited a range of photographs and then was shown how to upload them to the image database used by the museum called Odin.
During my placement I was lucky enough to attend the department trip to Cambridge. We visited The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and The Fitzwilliam Museum. It was an excellent day during which I was able to see a historic city, two fantastic museums and talk to a number of other volunteers and members of staff who were extremely friendly. I was very thankful to have been invited and found the opportunity to talk to members of staff and volunteers invaluable as they were able to give me advice on further education and potential careers.
At the start of my second week I revisited Merlin to update the descriptions of Roman sculptures. I found this task highly informative because prior to this task I had not explored Roman sculpture but through reading the existing descriptions and updating them I learnt a lot. During this week I also helped to organise files containing Roman treasure cases. This allowed me to learn how treasure cases are dealt with, the process for the museum obtaining treasure and how frequently treasure cases are given to curators. I also used the Portable Antiquities Scheme website to obtain the PAS numbers for the treasure cases to allow them to be located online more easily. Toward the end of the week I helped another volunteer, Matthew Fittock, with his work on a hoard from Piercebridge. I was able to photograph some of the items as well as measure them and help write descriptions for the Portable Antiquities Scheme online database.
This placement at the British Museum taught me a range of new skills, gave me the oppourtunity to talk to professionals and confirmed my desire to pursue a career in the museum sector. I found the placement thoroughly enjoyable and hope to return again as a volunteer in the future. Once again I would like to thank all of the staff and volunteers for creating such a welcoming environment and Richard Hobbs for having me as his volunteer, teaching me a range of new skills and providing me with an invaluable experience.