Wales and the World Wars: Kate Rowlands' Diaries 27 January 2017 The twitter account @DyddiadurKate shares entries from the diaries of Kate Rowlands, Sarnau. Over a century later, her entries from 1915 tell a story about life in Wales during the First World War. The diary was donated to the Museum in 1969, during a period when archive staff travelled to communities across Wales to record people telling their stories, in their own words. Kate Rowlands' 1915 diary is a rich and nuanced account of life in rural Wales during the Great War. It gives us glimpses into everyday tasks, the names of fields and farms, local characters, dialects, as well chapel and farm life. The diary is reproduced in Welsh, exactly as it was written, on twitter. You can read more about the personal stories we've uncovered about the First World War on the museum blog. Tweets by DyddiadurKate More about the Diary The Author Kate Rowlands' diary from 1915 was donated to the Museum in 1969. She also recorded a number of Oral History recordings with curators from the Museum, all of which add to our understanding of her life in rural North Wales, in the early to mid twentieth-century. She was born in Brymbo, near Wrexham, in 1892. Her mother, Alice Jane, was originally from Hendre, Cefnddwysarn, and nine months after Kate was born, both mother and daughter returned to this area, following the sudden death of Kate's father from an illness sustained working in the steel industry. Her mother's family had a great influence on her upbringing - in one oral history interview with the Museum, Kate states that "y nhw oedd y canllawie gathon ni gychwyn arnyn nhw" - "they were the ones who guided us as we got started in life". Homework to farm work Kate's mother remarried with Ellis Roberts Ellis, who is also mentioned in the diary. In 1897, when Kate was five years old, the family moved to a small farm near Llantisilio, Llangollen, and then to Tyhen, Sarnau - the location of the diary. An only child, she left school at fourteen to help her parents with work on the farm. "My parents lost their health to an extent. That really went across my going ahead with my education. I had to be home, you see... A bit of everything, jack of all trade. I had to help a lot with horses and things like that. Heating up the big oven to cook bread, and churning when it was called for, two times a week or so." Oral History Kate Rowlands donated her diary after being interviewed in 1969. Due to the tireless work of St Fagans' early curators, the archive now holds a rich collection of items, documents and recordings relating to women's history, especially women living and working in rural communities. Kate also donated her 1946 diary to the Museum. This volume is also available online on twitter. Read more about Welsh Women's History. Kate Rowlands - Early life (Welsh recording) Kate Rowlands - Week on the Farm (Welsh recording) Kate Rowlands - Playing Steddfod and Leaving School (Welsh recording) You can download an electronic version of the diary here: Dyddiadur Kate E-book (PDF) PLEASE NOTE: The diary is in Welsh
199 Silver Pennies - the Abergavenny Hoard Edward Besly, 6 January 2017 Part of the Abergavenny hoard as discovered. In April 2002 three metal-detectorists (John L Jones, Richard Johns and Fred Edwards) had the find of their lives in a field near Abergavenny, Monmouthshire: a scattered hoard of 199 silver pennies. The hoard included coins of the Anglo-Saxon king Edward the Confessor (1042-66) and the Norman king William the Conqueror (1066-87). The hoard probably pre-dates the founding of Abergavenny near by in the 1080s. The hoard was heavily encrusted with iron deposits, including traces of fabric, suggesting that the coins had originally been held in a cloth bag. It is not clear whether they had been deliberately hidden, or simply lost. Either way their owner was the poorer by a significant amount: sixteen shillings and seven pence (16s 7d, or £0.83p) would for most have represented several months' wages. Minting coins Anglo-Saxon and Norman coins form an unique historical source: each names its place of minting and the moneyer responsible. People had easy access to a network of mints across England (there were none in Wales) and every few years existing money was called in to be re-minted with a new design. The King, of course, took a cut on each occasion. The Abergavenny hoard includes 36 identifiable mints, as well as some irregular issues which cannot at present be located. Coins from mints in the region, like Hereford (34 coins) and Bristol (24), are commonest, outweighing big mints such as London (19) and Winchester (20). At the other end of the scale there are single coins from small mints such as Bridport (Dorset), or distant ones such as Thetford (Norfolk) and Derby. Hoards from western Britain are rare, so the Abergavenny Hoard has produced many previously unrecorded combinations of mint, moneyer, and issue. We shall probably never know quite why these coins ended up in the corner of a field in Monmouthshire but, as well as expanding our knowledge of the coinage itself, they will cast new light on monetary conditions in the area after the Norman Conquest. Conservation The coins were found covered in iron concretions and many of them were stuck to each other. This disfigured the coins and obscured vital details. Removing this concretion with mechanical methods, such as using a scalpel, would have damaged the silver, and chemicals failed to shift the iron. The solution to the problem was found in an unexpected, but thoroughly modern tool - the laser. A laser is a source of light providing energy in the form of a very intense single wavelength, with a narrow beam which only spreads a few millimetres. As laser radiation is of a single colour (infrared light was used in this case) the beam will interact intensely with some materials, but hardly at all with others. This infrared source was absorbed better by the darker overlying iron corrosion than by the light silver metal. The laser was successful at removing much of the iron crust, but initially left a very thin oxide film on the surface. When this was removed, the detail revealed on the underlying coin was excellent; it was possible to see rough out and polishing marks transferred to the coin from the original die, as well as the inscribed legend. Abergavenny Hoard Edward the Confessor, 'Expanding Cross'; London, Lifing Edward the Confessor, 'Expanding Cross'; London, Lifing Edward, 'Pointed Helmet'; London, Eadred Edward, 'Pointed Helmet'; London, Eadred Edward, 'Sovereign'; Hereford, Eadric Edward, 'Sovereign'; Hereford, Eadric Edward, 'Sovereign'; Taunton, Brihtric Edward, 'Sovereign'; Taunton, Brihtric Edward, 'Sovereign'; Worcester, Garulf Edward, 'Sovereign'; Worcester, Garulf Edward, 'Sovereign/Hammer Cross'; Taunton, Brihtric Edward, 'Sovereign/Hammer Cross'; Taunton, Brihtric Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Cricklade, Æthelwine Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Cricklade, Æthelwine Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Exeter, Wicing Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Exeter, Wicing Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Tamworth, Brininc Edward, 'Hammer Cross'; Tamworth, Brininc Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Gloucester, Wulfweard Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Gloucester, Wulfweard Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Ægelric Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Ægelric Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Ælfwi Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Ælfwi Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Earnwi Edward, 'Bust Facing'; Hereford, Earnwi Edward, 'Bust Facing'; York, Iocetel Edward, 'Bust Facing'; York, Iocetel William I, 'Bonnet'; Chester, Ælfsige William I, 'Bonnet'; Chester, Ælfsige William, 'Two Sceptres/Two Stars'; Wareham, Sideman William, 'Two Sceptres/Two Stars'; Wareham, Sideman William, 'Two Stars'; Bristol, Ceorl William, 'Two Stars'; Bristol, Ceorl William, 'Two Stars'; Hereford, Leofstan William, 'Two Stars'; Hereford, Leofstan William, 'Two Stars'; London, Brihtric William, 'Two Stars'; London, Brihtric William, 'Two Stars'; Sandwich, Ælfget William, 'Two Stars'; Sandwich, Ælfget William, 'Two Stars'; irregular issue William, 'Two Stars'; irregular issue William, 'Sword'; Wilton, Ælfwine William, 'Sword'; Wilton, Ælfwine William, 'Profile Right'; Oxford, Heregod William, 'Profile Right'; Oxford, Heregod Background Reading Conquest, Coexistence, and Change. Wales 1063-1415 by R. R. Davies. Published by Oxford University Press (1987). The Norman Conquest and the English Coinage by Michael Dolley. Published by Spink and Son (1966).
A Fake in Our Galleries? 29 June 2016 Caernarvon Castle by Richard Wilson Claude Monet, Charing Cross Bridge, 1902 Thomas Jones' 'Buildings in Naples', 1782 'The Sea's Edge', Arthur Giardelli, 1990 The Beacon Light, J.M.W. Turner A Missing Masterpiece We are always learning more about our collections at National Museum Cardiff - whether it's about the lives of fascinating sitters, uncovering hidden portraits under layers of paint, or more about the artists' journeys. This month, however, we're putting your know-how to the test - to see whether you can spot an impostor in our collection. Throughout July, we will be replacing one of our works of art with a fake, as part of Sky Arts' competition and tv show: Fake! The Great Masterpiece Challenge. Can you find the fake? We're appealing to armchair art detectives everywhere, to visit National Museum Cardiff and find the fake. A copy has been made of a great work of 'British Landscape' painting, and will be hanging in our galleries throughout July. Once you've decided which one of our works isn't quite what it seems, place your vote online - all will be revealed on Sky Arts later this year, and unveiled in a special exhibition. The Art Collections at Cardiff We have over a thousand works of art on display at National Museum Cardiff - from our famous impressionist collection, to contemporary works, installations and applied art. Entry is free, so visit us this month to find the fake. To make things a little easier, we're focussing on our landscape collections. Here are some of its highlights and hidden gems: The Golden Age of the Picturesque At National Museum Cardiff, you'll find works by master landscape painter Richard Wilson - whose amazing ability to capture scenes bathed in Mediterranean light led him to be known as the 'Father of British Landscape'. You will also find a portrait of this artist, at work by his easel, in our Historic Art galleries - painted by his contemporary, Anton Mengs. Different Perspectives: Cityscapes and Nocturnes As the landscape changes over time, so have artists' techniques and perspectives. No bigger than a picture postcard, Thomas Jones' urban scenes, painted ahead of their time in the 1780s, show snapshots of the backstreets and roofs of Naples. Jones' work appears alongside studies of nature in our Paintings from Nature gallery. Italy's cities appear in our Art in Britain around 1900 galleries, with Venice featuring often in works such as Sickert's 'Palazzo Camerlenghi', his 'Palazzo Eleanora Duse' - and Whistler's Nocturne: Blue and Gold, showing the Piazza San Marco. Painting Light In our galleries, you'll find an extensive collection of Impressionist works, from Dorothea Sharp's open-air scenes and Monet's famous Waterlilies, to post-impressionist masterpieces such as Cézanne's 'The François Zola Dam'. Arguably one of the UK's most famous artists, J.M.W Turner was a precursor of the impressionist style - capturing the bluster and chaos of a storm in works such as 'The Beacon Light', or golden sunrises and seascapes in 'The Morning After the Storm'. Three of Turner's lesser-known works, branded as 'fakes' in the 1950s, were studied in detail and recently confirmed as a genuine. These works are now proudly on display in our Victorian Gallery, alongside works by pre-raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti and miniature maquettes of one of Cardiff's most famous landmarks, the castle's Animal Wall. Wales's Inspiring Landscape The Power of the Land: The Welsh Landscape gallery tells the story of Wales' changing landscape, and the way it has inspired painters, sculptors and travellers over the centuries. From the eighteenth century artists began to explore Wales in unprecedented numbers. Today Wales is still attracting artists, re-interpreting the places and paintings of the past, looking at the land in new ways. From Kyffin Williams' wild mountains to Cardiff's industrial docks, you'll find them in this beautiful circular gallery. Related Events If you'd like to take a closer look at the collection, we have free guided tours every Wednesday and Saturday at 12.30pm. Take a look at highlights including works by Cézanne, L.S Lowry, Richard Wilson and J.M.W. Turner, with our friendly gallery guides.
Type your way into our collections Harriet Wood, 17 April 2014 The homepage of the Mollusca Types Catalogue. Neptunea lyrata, the oldest type specimen held at Amgueddfa Cymru, collected by Captain James Cook in 1778 from Alaska. Specimen images and labels for the type of Octopus maculosus described by our first director, Williams Evans Hoyle, in 1883. A map illustrating the 110 countries that our web visitors come from so far. Top 10 most viewed specimens after 18 months online The Mollusca Types Catalogue was published online by Amgueddfa Cymru in September 2012. This was the first time that images of over 350 of our most important mollusc specimens were made available to our ever growing cyber audience. The Mollusc collections at Amgueddfa Cymru The mollusc collections at Amgueddfa Cymru are of international significance and contain hundreds of thousands of specimens. Molluscs are an extremely diverse group that exist in most of the environments on the planet – from landsnails on mountain tops to bivalves in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, venomous cone shells to freshwater pearl mussels, carnivorous slugs to camouflaging cuttlefish. Our collection reflects this diversity and geographical and environmental range. What are type specimens? The ‘type’ specimens of any natural history collection are among the scientific gems that need to be safeguarded above all others. They are specimens carefully selected to represent new species and offer a permanent reference for future taxonomists. Within the Amgueddfa Cymru Mollusca collection there are 3200 type specimens, spanning nearly 200 years of collecting. Two-thirds come from the famous Melvill-Tomlin shell collection, illustrating its scientific depth and historical importance. Our earliest type is a large cold-water whelk from Alaska, collected in 1778 by Captain James Cook during his third and last voyage. This and many others were described by some of the great collectors and taxonomists of their time, including William Evans Hoyle, the Museum’s first director and Cephalopod expert. The Mollusca Types Catalogue online With many collection-based enquiries hinging on type material we were keen to develop a tool to make them accessible across the world and so the Mollusca Types Catalogue was born. The project began in 2009 when the focus was on isolating 350 of our most important types from the main collection, then storing them in new cabinets for easy access and increased security. All of these specimens and their labels were photographed and references for the original species descriptions were checked and scanned. This information was pulled together onto a database and published online. But this is only the beginning… The many remaining types will be added periodically, with staff continuing to research unrecognised types within our collections. New type specimens will also be added whenever new species are discovered and described by our taxonomists. Who’s been looking? Since going online in 2012 the number of enquiries relating to type specimens has increased dramatically. This illustrates the important role that websites play in increasing access and the use of our collections. With the use of Google Analytics we can get some idea of who’s been looking over the last 18 months: We have had 3,973 visitors, viewing 12,268 pages. We have had hits from 113 countries. Top 5 users: UK, Spain, United States, Italy, France. 59.5% are new visitors and 40.5% are returning visitors. Most viewed specimen: Scintilla lynchae Oliver & Holmes, 2004 Take a look So, take a look for yourselves and let’s see where we are in a year from now…. Wood, H. & Turner, J. A. 2012. Mollusca Types Catalogue. Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. Available online at http://naturalhistory.museumwales.ac.uk/molluscatypes
Species new to Science: Polychaetes from the Falkland Islands Teresa Darbyshire, 21 February 2013 1. Map showing the sample sites around East Falkland with enlarged inset map of locations around Stanley 3. Two cirratulids found under a rock during a dive 4. Scaleworm (Polynoidae) found under a rock while diving 8. Paddleworm (Phyllodocidae) with distinctive black stripes 9. Two different species of lugworm (Arenicolidae) from a shore 10. A new species of ragworm (Nereididae) Polychaetes (or bristleworms) are found in nearly every marine habitat on Earth. They are very adaptable and diverse in appearance, and there are currently around 10,000 species described. With increasing environmental pressures on our marine environment it is more important than ever to know what species live where. Polychaetes from offshore habitats around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic have often been sampled as part of Antarctic research cruises. Those from intertidal regions (between high and low tide marks) are conversely not so well known. Some intertidal work was done at the beginning of the twentieth century by a Falkands naturalist, Rupert Vallentin, who sent specimens to taxonomists for identification and research. Since then little has been done. Teresa Darbyshire, a marine biologist from Amgueddfa Cymru, has been collaborating with the local Shallow Marine Surveys Group to study the polychaetes of the Falkland Islands. Four weeks of fieldwork in late 2011, funded by the Shackleton Scholarship Fund, allowed nineteen different shores to be sampled (Images 1, 2, 6) on East Falkland, the main island of the group. Diving together with the Shallow Marine Surveys Group also allowed offshore sites to be sampled (Image 3, 4, 7). Fieldwork in the Falkland Islands offered some unusual biological hazards including sea lions investigating Teresa while working underwater, elephant seals creeping up behind her on the shore, and caracaras (birds of prey) trying to fly off with the sample pots! (Image 5) Features important for their identification such as colour and patterns (Image 8) often disappear or change once polychaetes are preserved ("fixed"). Specimens were, therefore, mostly looked at and photographed live under a microscope. Specimens were also "relaxed" before fixing so that they were less likely to contort and possibly break-up, so making them much easier to identify later on. Polychaete identification is neither quick nor easy! Different species occur across the world and change according to both habitat and location. Located in the South Atlantic, the Falkland polychaetes are likely to be different from those in the North Atlantic and so their identification is requiring much searching of available literature. To start with, the specimens were first sorted into families (groups of related species). Although not all families exist in all environments, the families recognised from the Falklands also occur in British waters. Each family was then studied in turn, to identify the different species present across all of the sites. It's always easier to identify something if you have many specimens to look at as you may get a range of different sizes, from juveniles to adults, and also specimens in different condition. Over thirty different families have now been identified from the samples. Two new species have already been found of lugworm (Arenicolidae , Image 9) and ragworm (Nereididae, Image 10). This is surprising as these two groups contain large animals and are generally well known as they are often used by fishermen for bait. It is expected that several more new species will be found as the samples are analysed. A second visit occurred in 2013 to sample additional locations both on East Falkland and across West Falkland too. Eventually, it is intended that all of these samples together will facilitate the production of a list of the intertidal and inshore polychaetes of the Falkland Islands. This will be of great benefit to all those working to protect the environment of the Falkland Islands as well as polychaete researchers from around the world.
