The Manchester Museum

“Crumpled, folded, left lying for the peat Flesh becomes water, became earth Became stone in time. No hope of that now, leather man, stone Interrupted,...

As part of the work on evaluating the Lindow Man exhibition I rang Carole Knight, Project Administration Assistant at the Manchester Museum, to ask how many people visited. 133,413 people came to see Lindow Man.

I spent this morning looking at the evaluation of the Comments Cards in the Lindow Man exhibition for October to December 2008 and there, as an example of a reflective comment from a visitor is this poem:- It started out as a lovely day, Birds were flittering amongst the hay, For someone’s...

Going through the contents of the Lindow Man Offerings box. Ina ddtion to over £300 in loose change there are lots of personal accessories such as badges and prepared pieces such as a female fertility figure with an open belly containing moss...

A couple of days after our Lindow Man exhibition closed I had a meeting with Cat Lumb, Lead Educator Humanities (Secondary and Post-16) to talk about how we could continue to offer an education session based around the Lindow Man courtroom scenario without being able to use Lindow Man himself...

Lindow Man exhibition closed today but remember that the Lindow Moss photographic exhibition continues until July.

The following comment was written in the comments book in the photographic exhibition about Lindow Moss:- “dear curator-type guy, although myself and my amazing girlfriend are aware that there is little chance of you actually reading this we feel the need to congratulate you on the wonderful...

In the last few weeks there has been renewed interest in the Lindow Manexhibition at the Manchester Museum. I have recently spoken to the Huddersfield & District Archaeological Society and Ashton & Sale History Society and tonight I am going to talk to the Saddleworth Archaeological Trust...

Last Saturday I came into the Museum to show the Stoke on Trent Museum Archaeological Society the Lindow Man exhibition. I also showed them the recently discovered Roman altar from Manchester in our new Manchester Gallery...

My much valued colleague, Cat Lumb, who is Lead Educator (Secondary Humanities) at the Manchester Museum, recently passed on some project work about Lindow Man completed by students at Breeze Hill Secondary School...

No-one seems to have picked up the reference to the “mirror looking down the well” episode in Cold Mountain but I’ve came across another interesting human remains anecdote in Robert Hicks’ American Civil War novel The Widow of the South...

Just been watching the Gardeners’ Worldprogramme on BBC1 and was appalled at the complacency of people who make use of peat in their gardens despite knowing that this is damaging a precious and vulnerable habitat...

Lindow Man book cover Wendy in the Museum shop rang me late this afternoon saying that I probably woudn’t be interested and it was probably too late but that she had received a newly published book on Lindow Man...

The death of Lindow Man by Aoife Patterson A couple of months ago student Aoife Patterson visited the Manchester Museum to find out more about the circumstances of Lindow Man’s death...

Manchester Histories Festival Attended the Manchester Histories Festival on Saturday, where the Manchester Museum, the Youth Board and the Young Archaeologists Club had a stall. Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes, suggested we move into the Banqueting Hall where there was more space...

A recent enquiry took me to illustrations of bogs in the Atlas of Irish Rural Landscape, which mentions that the edges of bogland environments attracted marginalized people because turf was the poor person’s fuel...

Got back to work today after a week’s leave and the first knock on my office door was Stephen Booth, Curator of Temporary and Touring Exhibitions, proudly holding a copy of Design Week Awards 2009. “Look at page 53″ he said...

Last week was half term for schools in Manchester and Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes at the Museum, arranged crafts and handling activities on the theme of Lindow Man...

Keep up with what's happening at The Manchester Museum at www.twitter.com/mcrmuseum

Mr Will Charlton, a Trustee of the LSW Museum, visited the Lindow Man exhibition as part of a fact finding tour last December...

Yesterday’s Strategic Team Awayday turned up an unexpected link with Lindow Man. We had all filled in a Myers Briggs questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences. We speculated on whether everyone in the world really did fit into one of the 16 categories...

Attended yesterday’s data group meeting at which the results of lasts summer’s visitor survey by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre was presented...

“This whole exhibition makes a mockery of itself. All emphasis has been put on the ethics of seeing a dead body despite the mummys upstairs. Why not allow patrons to choose for themselves whether to see it and produce a historical exhibition?” S.C...

Student's drawing of Lindow Man's death (courtesy of Aoife) Aoife kindly sent me some copies of some more reconstruction drawings of Lindow Man’s death from the work done by the students she consulted...

Aoife's bird's eye view of a native settlement Just got out of a meeting with a student called Aoife, who is taking an MA in archaeological illustration at Swindon College. She is working on a cartoon strip sequence which will tell the story of how Lindow Man was killed...

A student with a pressing essay deadline emailed me last week to ask how many visitors we have had to the Lindow Man exhibition...

It’s a great pleasure to know that the Lindow Man exhibition is still generating lots of interest,. This morning I had an enquiry from a student about how the exhibits were selected and whether the people who helped us with the exhibition were consulted...

Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes, has passed on a letter from a member of the public, Paul Broadbent, who apologizes for not being able to attend the Lindow Man poetry night that Anna organized earlier in the year and includes the following poem:- I were lay there warm and ‘appy, no one...

The New Year has brought with it more comments cards left by visitors over the holiday period...

First day back at work since Xmas Eve and some of the first things to deal with are an enquiry from a lady on the Isle of Man who wants to bring her son to see Lindow Man in February and an enquiry from a student at Bristol University doing a final year dissertation on how opinions of the Lindow...

Just had a phone call from Anna Bunney, Curator of Public Programmes at the Manchester Museum, asking for a picture of the mistletoe pollen from Lindow Man’s stomach...

The December issue of the Museums Journal looks at some of the highs and lows of 2008. Apparently among all the offerings from the big nationals two exhibitions in less high-profile museums stand out...

Carolanne telling a story at the Manyacs Xmas party The Manchester Museum Young Archaeologists Club (the Manyacs for short) had their Xmas party on Saturday. Clare, Carolanne, Andy and the other helpers put on a feast of the kind Lindow Man might have enjoyed...