Yorkshire Museum
Encyclopedia
The Yorkshire Museum is a museum
in York
, England
. It is the home of the Cawood sword
, and has four permanent collections, covering biology
, geology
, archaeology
and astronomy
. It underwent a major refurbishment from November 2009 to 1 August 2010, with major structural changes and a re-development of all existing galleries.
to accommodate their geological and archaeological collections, and was originally housed in Ousegate, York until the site became too small. In 1828 the society received by royal grant, ten acre
s (0.040 km²) of land formerly belonging to St Mary’s Abbey
in order to build a new museum. The main building of the museum is called the Yorkshire Museum and was designed by William Wilkins
in a Greek Revival style. It is a Grade I listed building. It was officially opened in February 1830, which makes it one of the longest established museums in England. A condition of the royal grant was that the land surrounding the Museum building should be a botanic gardens; this was done in the 1830s, and they are now known as the Museum Gardens. On 26 September 1831 the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
was held at the Yorkshire Museum.
The Tempest Anderson Hall was built in 1912 as an annex to the museum, and is an early example of a reinforced concrete
building. It is used as a conference venue and lecture theatre.
In 1960, the Museum along with the Museum Gardens, were given in trust to York City Council, its successor the City of York Council
in 2002 set up the York Museums Trust to manage the York Castle Museum
, York Art Gallery
, the Yorkshire Museum and the Museum Gardens.
status, which means they are "pre-eminent collections of national and international importance".
The museum also has a collection of studio pottery
consisting of over 3,500 pieces that represent more than 500 potters. These were bequeathed
to the Yorkshire Museum by Wakefield
librarian Bill Ismay in 2001. The collection can be seen in York Art Gallery
.
and museum staff will identify objects brought to them by members of the public. The information is also recorded to help build up a more complete archaeological picture of the past.
. The £2 million scheme was largely carried out by the museum's own staff, who restructured the interior of the building and re-decorated it. The result is three major sections: "Eboracum: Face to Face with the Romans", "York: The Power and the Glory" (Anglian, Viking and Medieval York), and "Extinct: A way of life" a "fun, family-oriented gallery" featuring fossils, skeletons and animal specimens. There will also be a "History of York" section and "Enquiry - The Learning Level".
10th century niello
silver-gilt pot full of coins was found near Harrogate
in 2007. It was valued at £1,082,000 and acquired jointly by the British Museum
and the York Museums Trust. After being cleaned by the conservation department of the British Museum
it was displayed at the Yorkshire Museum from 17 September 2009 for a period of six weeks before moving to the British Museum. It is planned that the hoard will be displayed in the museum again when it reopens after refurbishment on 1 August 2010.
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...
in York
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It is the home of the Cawood sword
Cawood sword
The Cawood sword is regarded as "one of the finest Viking swords ever discovered". It is nearly 1,000 years old and is the fifth sword of its type ever to be found and by far the best preserved....
, and has four permanent collections, covering biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
and astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
. It underwent a major refurbishment from November 2009 to 1 August 2010, with major structural changes and a re-development of all existing galleries.
History
The Museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical SocietyYorkshire Philosophical Society
The Yorkshire Philosophical Society is a charitable learned society aimed at promoting the natural sciences, archaeology and history. The society was formed in York in December 1822 by James Atkinson, William Salmond, Anthony Thorpe and William Vernon....
to accommodate their geological and archaeological collections, and was originally housed in Ousegate, York until the site became too small. In 1828 the society received by royal grant, ten acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
s (0.040 km²) of land formerly belonging to St Mary’s Abbey
St Mary's Abbey, York
The Abbey of St Mary in York, once the richest abbey in the north of England, is a ruined Benedictine abbey that lies in what are now the Yorkshire Museum Gardens, on a steeply sloping site to the west of York Minster. The original abbey on the site was founded in 1055 and dedicated to Saint Olave...
in order to build a new museum. The main building of the museum is called the Yorkshire Museum and was designed by William Wilkins
William Wilkins (architect)
William Wilkins RA was an English architect, classical scholar and archaeologist. He designed the National Gallery and University College in London, and buildings for several Cambridge colleges.-Life:...
in a Greek Revival style. It is a Grade I listed building. It was officially opened in February 1830, which makes it one of the longest established museums in England. A condition of the royal grant was that the land surrounding the Museum building should be a botanic gardens; this was done in the 1830s, and they are now known as the Museum Gardens. On 26 September 1831 the inaugural meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
British Association for the Advancement of Science
frame|right|"The BA" logoThe British Association for the Advancement of Science or the British Science Association, formerly known as the BA, is a learned society with the object of promoting science, directing general attention to scientific matters, and facilitating interaction between...
was held at the Yorkshire Museum.
The Tempest Anderson Hall was built in 1912 as an annex to the museum, and is an early example of a reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...
building. It is used as a conference venue and lecture theatre.
In 1960, the Museum along with the Museum Gardens, were given in trust to York City Council, its successor the City of York Council
York
York is a walled city, situated at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence...
in 2002 set up the York Museums Trust to manage the York Castle Museum
York Castle Museum
York Castle Museum is a museum located in York, North Yorkshire, England, on the site of York Castle, originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068...
, York Art Gallery
York Art Gallery
thumb|right|York Art Gallery and statue of William Etty, by Stanley HoweYork Art Gallery in York, North Yorkshire, England is a public art gallery with a collection of paintings, from 14th century to contemporary, and 20th-century ceramics...
, the Yorkshire Museum and the Museum Gardens.
Collections
The four permanent collections at the museum all have English designated collectionDesignation Scheme
The Designation Scheme is an English system that awards "designated status" to museums and library collections considered to be of great importance by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council . As of 2009, 125 collections are officially recognized...
status, which means they are "pre-eminent collections of national and international importance".
- The biologyBiologyBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
collection contains 200,000 specimens, including both fauna and flora, with the majority of the collection made up of insects. There are two stuffed specimens of the extinct great aukGreat AukThe Great Auk, Pinguinus impennis, formerly of the genus Alca, was a large, flightless alcid that became extinct in the mid-19th century. It was the only modern species in the genus Pinguinus, a group of birds that formerly included one other species of flightless giant auk from the Atlantic Ocean...
, an almost complete skeleton of an extinct moaMoaThe moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about ....
and a large collection of specimens from the Yorkshire region including the remains of elephants, cave bears and hyenaHyenaHyenas or Hyaenas are the animals of the family Hyaenidae of suborder feliforms of the Carnivora. It is the fourth smallest biological family in the Carnivora , and one of the smallest in the mammalia...
from Kirkdale CaveKirkdale CaveKirkdale Cave is a cave located in Kirkdale near Kirkbymoorside in the Vale of Pickering, North Yorkshire, England. The cave was discovered by workmen in 1821, and was found to contain fossilized bones of a variety of mammals not currently found in Great Britain, including hippopotamus, the...
dated to the Quaternary periodQuaternaryThe Quaternary Period is the most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the ICS. It follows the Neogene Period, spanning 2.588 ± 0.005 million years ago to the present...
, around 125,000 years. - The geologyGeologyGeology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
collection contains over 112,500 specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils. Fossils make up the majority of the collection numbering over 100,000 samples, and include important specimens from the CarboniferousCarboniferousThe Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
, MesozoicMesozoicThe Mesozoic era is an interval of geological time from about 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago. It is often referred to as the age of reptiles because reptiles, namely dinosaurs, were the dominant terrestrial and marine vertebrates of the time...
and TertiaryTertiaryThe Tertiary is a deprecated term for a geologic period 65 million to 2.6 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and the Quaternary...
periods. - The astronomyAstronomyAstronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...
collection is mainly kept in the Observatory in Museum Gardens with some telescopes kept at the Castle MuseumYork Castle MuseumYork Castle Museum is a museum located in York, North Yorkshire, England, on the site of York Castle, originally built by William the Conqueror in 1068...
in York.
- The archaeologyArchaeologyArchaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
collection has close to a million objects that date from around 500,000 BC to the 20th century and includes the Coppergate HelmetCoppergate HelmetThe Coppergate Helmet is an 8th century Anglo-Saxon crested helm in York. It has two cheek plates, a mail curtain and a nose-guard, and is richly decorated with brass ornamentation. On analysis it was found to be made of iron with decorations of brass containing approximately 85 percent copper...
, discovered in York in 1982, and the Ormside BowlOrmside bowlThe Ormside Bowl is an Anglo-Saxon double-bowl in gilded silver and bronze, with glass, perhaps Northumbrian, dating from the mid-8th century which was found in 1823, possibly buried next to a Viking warrior in Great Ormside, Cumbria, though the circumstances of the find were not well recorded...
, an intricate example of work by an AnglianAnglesThe Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
silversmithSilversmithA silversmith is a craftsperson who makes objects from silver or gold. The terms 'silversmith' and 'goldsmith' are not synonyms as the techniques, training, history, and guilds are or were largely the same but the end product varies greatly as does the scale of objects created.Silversmithing is the...
. In 1992 the Yorkshire Museum paid two and a half million pounds for the Middleham Jewel which was originally found by Ted Seaton using a metal detectorMetal detectorA metal detector is a device which responds to metal that may not be readily apparent.The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field...
at MiddlehamMiddlehamMiddleham is a small market town and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It lies in Wensleydale, in the Yorkshire Dales, on the north-facing side of the valley just above the junction of the River Ure and River Cover. There has been a settlement there since Roman...
, North YorkshireNorth YorkshireNorth Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
. The jewel is a goldGoldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. Gold is a dense, soft, shiny, malleable and ductile metal. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Chemically, gold is a...
diamondLozengeA lozenge , often referred to as a diamond, is a form of rhombus. The definition of lozenge is not strictly fixed, and it is sometimes used simply as a synonym for rhombus. Most often, though, lozenge refers to a thin rhombus—a rhombus with acute angles of 45°...
-shaped pendant with a blue sapphireSapphireSapphire is a gemstone variety of the mineral corundum, an aluminium oxide , when it is a color other than red or dark pink; in which case the gem would instead be called a ruby, considered to be a different gemstone. Trace amounts of other elements such as iron, titanium, or chromium can give...
at the top dating to around 1460 that is engraved with a picture of the ChristianChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
TrinityTrinityThe Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...
on the front and of the Nativity of JesusNativity of JesusThe Nativity of Jesus, or simply The Nativity, refers to the accounts of the birth of Jesus in two of the Canonical gospels and in various apocryphal texts....
on the back.Archaeology, York Museums Trust (2006), retrieved on 24 June 2007.
Studio pottery
Studio pottery is made by modern artists working alone or in small groups, producing unique items of pottery in small quantities, typically with all stages of manufacture carried out by one individual. Much studio pottery is tableware or cookware but an increasing number of studio potters produce...
consisting of over 3,500 pieces that represent more than 500 potters. These were bequeathed
Bequest
A bequest is the act of giving property by will. Strictly, "bequest" is used of personal property, and "devise" of real property. In legal terminology, "bequeath" is a verb form meaning "to make a bequest."...
to the Yorkshire Museum by Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
librarian Bill Ismay in 2001. The collection can be seen in York Art Gallery
York Art Gallery
thumb|right|York Art Gallery and statue of William Etty, by Stanley HoweYork Art Gallery in York, North Yorkshire, England is a public art gallery with a collection of paintings, from 14th century to contemporary, and 20th-century ceramics...
.
Events
The museum has Finds Days in the main Yorkshire Museum building where members of the national British Portable Antiquities SchemePortable Antiquities Scheme
The Portable Antiquities Scheme is a voluntary programme run by the United Kingdom government to record the increasing numbers of small finds of archaeological interest found by members of the public...
and museum staff will identify objects brought to them by members of the public. The information is also recorded to help build up a more complete archaeological picture of the past.
Refurbishment: "Letting in the Light"
The museum closed in November 2009 for a major refurbishment and reopened on 1 August 2010, Yorkshire DayYorkshire Day
Yorkshire Day is celebrated on 1 August to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. It was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as "protest movement against the Local Government re-organisation of 1974", The date alludes to the Battle of Minden, and...
. The £2 million scheme was largely carried out by the museum's own staff, who restructured the interior of the building and re-decorated it. The result is three major sections: "Eboracum: Face to Face with the Romans", "York: The Power and the Glory" (Anglian, Viking and Medieval York), and "Extinct: A way of life" a "fun, family-oriented gallery" featuring fossils, skeletons and animal specimens. There will also be a "History of York" section and "Enquiry - The Learning Level".
Vale of York Viking hoard
A VikingViking
The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...
10th century niello
Niello
Niello is a black mixture of copper, silver, and lead sulphides, used as an inlay on engraved or etched metal. It can be used for filling in designs cut from metal...
silver-gilt pot full of coins was found near Harrogate
Harrogate
Harrogate is a spa town in North Yorkshire, England. The town is a tourist destination and its visitor attractions include its spa waters, RHS Harlow Carr gardens, and Betty's Tea Rooms. From the town one can explore the nearby Yorkshire Dales national park. Harrogate originated in the 17th...
in 2007. It was valued at £1,082,000 and acquired jointly by the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
and the York Museums Trust. After being cleaned by the conservation department of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
it was displayed at the Yorkshire Museum from 17 September 2009 for a period of six weeks before moving to the British Museum. It is planned that the hoard will be displayed in the museum again when it reopens after refurbishment on 1 August 2010.