: Museums, Exhibitions and Events

If you have read any of the recent blog posts about the Saving Treasures; Telling Stories Project, or the Lost Treasures of Swansea Bay Project and its various exciting activities, you will know that Saving Treasures works with metal detector groups and local museums in Wales to widen access to, and understanding of, the material heritage of Wales.

What is material heritage?

Material heritage is the physical remains of the past, the objects left behind by past societies. Often, these are brought to light by members of the public, mainly metal detectorists, who report their significant finds to their local Finds Liaison Officer in order that they can be recorded on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database.

Taken together, these objects – especially when they are made available to the public in museum collections – help to build up a picture of how we used to live and who we used to be.

Why is it important?

The Saving Treasures; Telling Stories Project recognises that interaction with the history of your local area through the objects past communities left behind can be a powerful and enriching experience.

For those who are interested in the past, having access to the actual things that long-dead people used, wore and handled can bring us into contact with them much more directly than a history book ever could.

Every object has a story to tell

The discovery of a lost mourning ring or a hoard of Bronze Age axes tells us something about the people who used such objects and raises questions about how they came to be in the ground. Were they lost, discarded, or put there deliberately? And if so, why?

Thinking about these questions allows us to empathise with our forebears, understand something of their hopes, fears and concerns, and walk a little way in their shoes.

If you’re a regular visitor to our blog pages, you may have read about our work to improve the visitor experience for those who are blind or visually impaired. We’ve had training with Cardiff Institute for the Blind, worked with our Youth Forum to make our art galleries more accessible and even discovered a specially created exhibition from the 80s.

We were proud to host RNIB Cymru’s launch event introducing a series of Welsh-language Roald Dahl Talking Books. The RNIB’s Talking Books (neu Llyfrau Llafar yn Gymraeg) scheme offers a library of over 25,000 free audiobooks that helps create a lifeline to the outside world for people who are blind or partially sighted. The service’s 6,000 customers will now be able to listen to Dahl’s stories in Welsh for the first time.

At the launch, there were inspiring talks from RNIB staff, S4C announcer/Talking Books narrator Huw Charles and a long-time Talking Books subscriber who shared just how big a difference the service can make to people’s lives.

We were then treated to readings from The BFG and Jiraff, a'r Pelican a Fi by Melangell Dolma, a Welsh-language Talking Books narrator, who demonstrated how expressive and engaging Talking Books can be.

Following the event in the Main Hall, we ran brief audio description tours of our illustration exhibition, Quentin Blake: Inside Stories. The tours were designed to offer a taster of our audio description gallery tours, which are now on offer to the public. As the day was a celebration of Roald Dahl, we focused on Blake’s illustrations from two Roald Dahl stories.

First we explored artworks from The Twits, describing how Blake captures the mean and disgusting title characters using scratchy lines and drab watercolours.

To add a tactile element, we passed around several tools that Quentin Blake might use, including watercolour paint brushes, metallic dip pens and feather quills. The brave among the group were also given the opportunity to sample the scent of Mr Twit’s beard, a striking blend of sardines and Stilton cheese.

Finally we moved on to illustrations from Matilda, focusing in particular on Matilda’s tyrannical head teacher, Miss Trunchbull. The story is one of Roald Dahl’s most popular books and was a fitting end to the morning of Dahl-themed fun. The tour was then repeated for our Welsh-speaking visitors.

We were also lucky enough to welcome RNIB Connect Radio, who did a segment on the launch, including interviews with visitors and members of staff. The comments from CIB member and good friend (along with our number one canine visitor) Sian Healy showed how the tour made Quentin Blake’s work more accessible to people with visual impairments.

“Through the description that the guide gave us of what was in the picture,” she said. “I could piece it together and know what I was seeing. I got the feel of the whole energy of the painting. And that’s what Quentin Blake can give, that energy”.

Sian also said some very kind things about her role in helping us develop these tours, proving that, although we still have a lot to learn, we’re certainly on the right track.

“I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being involved, getting to know the staff here, getting to know more about the Museum …It’s been lovely to have this sort of response from the Museum who have really embraced the idea of making the Museum accessible with these tours.”

Our audio description tours run once every other month. For more information and future dates, please call (029) 2057 3240.

Sometime at the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2,250 to 2,000 BC, some people walked through the wetlands where Swansea Bay now lies. Perhaps they used one of the wooden trackways which had been laid across the wet ground, parts of which can still be seen when the tide is out.

They had with them a special object, a fine flint dagger, a piece of exquisite workmanship made by an expert craftsman. The dagger was part of a Europe-wide culture, and was perhaps an important part of their identity.

For some reason the precious object was dropped; perhaps by accident, but more likely left as a deliberate offering in shallow water in a place of special significance.

Rediscovery

The dagger remained submerged, first in the water, and then, as the environment changed, in peat beneath the sands of Swansea Bay, for four millennia. Then, in 1971, a student, Paul Tambling and his girlfriend, Angela, were walking across the bay and saw it sticking out of the sand.

They picked it up and took it home, and it became a treasured object once more, associated with happy memories and a unique symbol of their relationship.

Reporting

Early in 2016 Paul and Angela heard of a flint knapping demonstration being held at Cyfarthfa House Museum in Merthyr Tydfil and decided to take their dagger along to show an expert.

The flint knapper recognised the dagger’s significance and it was reported to Mark Lodwick, the Portable Antiquities Scheme finds co-ordinator at Amgueddfa Cymru.

The dagger was identified as a ‘Beaker Dagger’, more commonly found in south-eastern England, often accompanying high-status burials, with only four other examples known of in Wales.

The discovery was exciting, and Mark contacted Paul and Angela, who brought the dagger in for recording and told him their story.

Recreation

Ideally, an object of this importance would belong in a public collection in a museum, but it is understandable that Paul and Angela want to keep it, given its personal significance to them.

Happily, a solution has been found in the form of flint-knapper Karl Lee, who attended Swansea Museum’s Welsh Museums Festival event in October and made a replica for display in their galleries.

It will now become a part of Swansea Museum’s Lost Treasures of Swansea Bay project, which invites communities to respond to the deep history of the bay through the many archaeological items found there by members of the public.

Here at the Mary Gillham Archive Project hub we’ve recently begun ‘timehopping’ on social media.

This involves using Mary’s detailed writings to find out what she was doing on today’s date, so many years ago, and then posting it on Twitter and Facebook (i.e. “on this date, in this year, Mary was doing this…”). It’s an interesting way to learn about Mary’s life history and see the many activities that she got up to in her day-to-day life.

A recent and particularly intriguing timehop posted on 16^th October described how on that day in 1982, Mary witnessed the enormous humpback whale lying washed up on Gilestone beach at Aberthaw, near the Power Station.

This sparked the interest of many and after a twitter conversation with National Museum Cardiff it turns out that the bones of the whale are now on display at the museum, right here in Cardiff! This means that you can still visit this gigantic sea mammal today and see a part of Welsh history with your own eyes, just like Mary did.

Crowds on Aberthaw Beach

For those fortunate enough to be there in 1982 Aberthaw, the experience was an unforgettable one.

In her archive, Mary explains that it was almost “impossible to photograph the whale” due to the thousands of people congregating to get a glimpse.

The coastguard had tied the tail of the whale to a large iron post in the ground with ropes (to prevent the animal from washing back out to sea).

Mary describes how she got the chance to hold one of the whale’s gigantic flippers while Piers Langhalt, formerly of National Museum Cardiff, cut the large barnacles from the animal. These same barnacles can be found preserved at the museum, alongside the whale!

One volunteer on the Mary Gillham Archive Project, Julia Banks, recalls the “overpowering, rotting smell” of the beached whale that she witnessed as a young child. Julia visited the scene with her parents and remembers joining the masses of locals all gathering for the unusual sight, as well as seeing a group of people measuring the whale in order to figure out its age.

Julia also remembers visiting National Museum Cardiff when the skeleton was put up on display, and “feeling proud that [their] whale was in the museum”.

For more of the story and info on how the whale was managed by National Museum Cardiff, why not take a trip to the museum to see for yourself how it stands today?

The Mary Gillham Archive Project is a Heritage Lottery funded project at South East Wales Biodiversity Records Centre. 
For more info about the project visit our website: https://marygillhamarchiveproject.com/the-project/

Archwilio Achau Emlyn Davies y Draper

Mae'r gwaith o ddatblygu sesiwn i blant am Siop Draper Emlyn Davies yn parhau yma yn yr Amgueddfa Wlân.

Roedd modd dechrau creu llun cyffrous o’r siop a’i  pherchennog trwy bori trwy dudalennau bywgraffiad Alan Owen: Emlyn Davies The Life & Times Of A Dowlais Draper in the first Half Of The Twentieth Century.

I ddechrau, roedd gan Richard Davies (sef enw genedigol Emlyn Davies) linach deuluol drawiadol. Roedd yn perthyn i'r Parchedig John Williams, a oedd yn bregethwr, bardd, cyfansoddwr emynau ac ysgrifwr nodedig; a John Havard a fu’n lawfeddyg ym mrwydr Waterloo.

Ar droad y ganrif ddiwethaf mae’n debyg fod y teulu yn gerddorol tu hwnt, ac yn un o’r rhai cyntaf yn yr ardal i fod yn berchen ar ‘phonograph’, sef dyfais fecanyddol i recordio sain. Mae’n debyg y deuai cymdogion a pherthnasau i fewn yn slei i gyntedd ei cartref i wrando arno!

Blynyddoedd o Eithafion

Bu 1912 i 1914 yn flynyddoedd o eithafion i’r siop a’r ardal:

1912:  Bu streic chwerw yn y gweithfeydd rhwng Mawrth 1af a diwedd Ebrill a gafodd effaith ddifrifol ar fusnesau lleol. Yna i’r gwrthwyneb yn llwyr fe siriolwyd Dowlais ddigysur gan faneri ac addurniadau lliwgar ar Fehefin 29fed pan ymwelodd y Brenin a’r Frenhines â’r dre.

Hydref 1913: Bu trychineb gwaethaf y diwydiant glo yn yr ardal sef Tanchwa Senghennydd, lle cafodd 439 o ddynion a bechgyn eu lladd.

Y stori fwya hynod ac annisgwyl efallai oedd cysylltiad y siop a storm ddifrifol a ddigwyddodd bythefnos ar ôl y digwyddiad ofnadwy hwnnw. Bu corwynt enfawr a chwythwyd a chlwyfwyd Doli - un o geffylau cludo parseli y siop, drosodd yn y gwynt!

1914: Ac ar nodyn ddwysach fyth - yr Ergyd Farwol - Y Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf a’i holl erchylltra a gyffyrddodd â phob cymuned.

Rhyfeloedd Byd: Newid Byd yn Nowlais

Bu byd o newid i nifer o bobl wedi‘r rhyfel byd 1af, ac yn enwedig i ferched. Mae Miriam - Minnie fel y gelwid - merch hynaf Emlyn Davies, yn esiampl o’r effaith yma.

Yn ystod y rhyfel er ei bod hi’n astudio mewn ysgol breswyl yn Aberhonddu, fe ddychwelodd i helpu yn y siop oherwydd bod nifer o’r dynion wedi gorfod mynd i ymladd. Yna, yn 1937 wedi marwolaeth ei thad, etifeddodd y siop mewn cyfnod anodd a thywyll arall.

Fe wnaeth y rhan yma o’r stori a’i chymeriad a’i bywyd hi gynnig ei hun fel spardun i greu sesiwn ysgolion yma yn yr Amgueddfa Wlân.

O fantais hefyd oedd bod hwn yn hanes o fewn côf. Cyffrowyd fi wrth feddwl mod i’n mynd i gael cyfle i wrando ar Mr Owen yn darlunio’r siop yn ystod y cyfnod cythryblus yma.

Cwrdd â Theulu Emlyn Davies

Dyna od fel mae rhywun yn dechrau tueddu dychmygu bod cymeriad mewn ffilm, llun neu lyfr yn parhau i fod yr un oed am byth - ac wrth deithio gyda'r curadur Mark Lucas i fwthyn bach ar gyrion Castell Newydd Emlyn i gyfarfod a Alan Owen (wyr Emlyn Davies), bron i mi argyhoeddi fy hun fy mod yn mynd i weld bachgen bach gyda chapan a throwsus byr a la y 30au!

Yr hyn sydd yn arbennig am gael cyfarfod wyneb yn wyneb a phobl sydd ynghlwm â hanes fel hyn yw eich bod yn cael gwell amgyffred o bersonoliaethau. Cofiai Mr Owen ei dadcu fel person hoffus, cariadus, a charedig - ac er ei fod yn amlwg yn ddyn busnes llwyddiannus gyda chyfrifoldebau mawr yn ei waith a’i gymdeithas, roedd hi’n ddifyr i ddarganfod y berthynas a fu rhyngddynt.

Cofiai fel y deuai ei dadcu ag anrhegion yn ôl iddo fe a’i chwaer bob tro y teithiai ar hyd y wlad ar fusnes. Cofiai gael llwnc o gwrw ganddo hefyd a chael ei gwrsio rownd y cownter!

Soniodd llawer am y gymuned fel yr oedd yn blentyn - roedd llawer o Wyddelod yn byw yn yr ardal yr adeg honno ac roedd  atgofion ganddo am orymdeithiau lliwgar ‘Corpus Christi’yn Dowlais.

Bu Mr Owen a’i chwaer ‘fach’ Mrs .Joan Preston (trwy ebost) yn garedig tu hwnt yn rhannu nifer o’u hatgofion o’r siop yn ystod y rhyfel pan fu eu mham Miriam Owen (Minnie) yn rhedeg y siop – ond eto mwy am hyn yn y blog nesaf!

Y gamp nesaf fydd cwtogi yn ofalus hanes hanner cant o flynyddoedd y siop i script 45 munud!