Revealing the historic sketches of Francis Place for the very first time…

After Museum conservators in the Art department had completed their conservation work on the Francis Place sketchbooks – containing some of the earliest on-the-spot- sketches of Wales in the Museums collections – I was given the task of figuring out the best way in which to present these sketches online.

Secret sketches hidden for 200 years

Places' sketchbooks had been taken apart 200 years ago and their pages stuck on a woven paper backing. Recent conservation work has since revealed further sketches on the reverse – sketches that have been hidden for over 200 years.

What's more, these hidden sketches were a continuation of the panoramic view from the previous page – so by digitally stitching two double page panoramas together, new complete views could been created that would never have been possible to see before – even by the artist himself!

Now, how could we display these new super long panoramas online whilst still allowing the detail to be seen?

The default width for our webpages is set at just under 1000 pixels across, this was just not enough to be able to show off these panoramas in any detail, so I decided that the easiest solution was to add scroll bars direct to the image, allowing them to be displayed across the page whilst at the same time allowing the complete panoramas to be studied in detail.

Cardiff 1678:

One of these newly generated images is of a panoramic view of Cardiff, containing an unique view of the medieval town as it was back in 1678.

To show this detailed sketch off in the best possible way, I decided to repurpose our interactive image navigator tool, which allows the user to pan around a high resolution image viewing details close up.

By using texts from a previously published article on medieval Cardiff, I was also able to pinpoint and highlight certain aspects of the panorama that were noteworthy – be it places that have remained unchanged since medieval times, or places that have long since vanished.

Francis Place goes global

To promote this work, the marketing team at the Museum distributed several Tweets and Facebook mentions. As well as being picked up by the BBC Wales news website and local media, we also published images onto the photo sharing website Flickr and added the extra information as notes embedded within the image. To make it a bit more user focused, I posted a comment asking users to guess where the artist was postitioned as he sketched… The foreground area of the sketch has altered so dramatically since 1678, it's not as easy as it seems….

Rhagor homepage featuring the Francis Place articles and interactives

These images are from half term. We had a bit of a love theme and were looking at lovespoons, pockets and stay busks. We looked at all the kinds of patterns you find on lovespoons, from the usual hearts and commas, to horses and forks!

Lots of people took their work home, but quite a few added decorations to our large lovespoons that are pictured here. I have to admit that Tracey Williams did a lot of work on the spoons and made them much more beautiful than when they started out.

The next art activity i'm involved in will be part of the launch of our new Explore Nature project in Oriel 1

As if by magic crocus flowers have sprung up all over Wales!

Many opened during the half term holidays, so we should receive a lot more records - now the pupils are back in school.

Unusually, this year the crocus has been reported in Mid Wales before being reported in West Wales. Good news for Ysgol Glantwymyn who normally have to wait the longest for their flowers.

Read my letter to find out how to win a trip and earn your super scientist certificates.

No reports of daffodils yet - but I'm sure we will have a few sightings soon.

My daffodils have started to tilt their heads in preparation to flower. The trees in my garden have started to flower and grow leaves, soon their will be lots of colour in my garden. I can't wait! Lots of signs of spring at St Fagans too.

Let me know how your flowers are doing?

Professor Plant

First of all, Happy Saint David’s Day to everyone! March has arrived, but is spring on its way? This morning, I went for a short stroll through the museum grounds to search for signs of spring. Here’s what I found…

It seems like Skull-Cups are all the rage this month.

The media loves a history-story with a bit of 'ick' to it, and the recently-discovered human remains from Cheddar Gorge struck a chord last week. Reports of our 'cannibalistic' ancestors appeared on the Beeb, the Guardian and even über-cool hangout Boing Boing. The skulls found in Gough's Cave were almost 15,000 years old, and were, according to experts, probably used as ceremonial goblets.

Fast forward around 14,000 years, to 1057CE (or 1057AD, depending on how you take your history). That's when an amazing piece of skull-cup history starts, and right here in Wales.

Far from the media's imagined early-mannibal, drinking blood from his familiar's head; this cup is a piece of Welsh history with refined, aristocratic associations. In fact, the skull was even set in silver by Garrard's of London, and supposedly once sat on the saintly shoulders of one of Wales' most popular men: St Teilo.
The skull, that is, not the cup.

The Mathew family, who lived in South Wales, took on the guardianship of Teilo's Skull just before the Battle of Hastings. By now, it is held in Llandaf Cathedral, and it can be viewed by appointment. I popped down last week to take a few photos of it for this Saturday's Holy Relics! talk.

It is currently sealed behind glass, to prevent the corrosion of the silver parts, and so I hope you'll forgive me for the reflections in my photos! I do like the fact that the curious custodian's shadow turns up in a few of them, like a ghost in a suit!

St Teilo's Skull-Cup, Llandaf Cathedral

The skull itself was handed down from generation to generation, carrying with it a tradition which goes back to the early Church and its practices. The body, or even part of the body, of a Saint was seen as a high-status object. Many churches have built their reputations thanks to the presence of bones in their altars, reportedly belonging to important Christians.

The veneration of relics still takes place, as does the exchange of these very sensitive objects. Ebay even has an advisory page on how to buy and sell your relics without commiting the Catholic sin of Simony, which is selling the human remains of a saint. A glance at Interpol's Stolen Art Register (possibly one of the most interesting corners of the web, found here) shows that icons and relics, from many different religions, are still powerful objects which fascinate buyers - scrupulous or otherwise.

Today, I'm writing up my talk for Saturday - it's the point at which I get really excited, but before the information quite settles into a coherent sequence.
Maybe it's time for a cup of tea...