What classical collections are you involved with?
As a historian of archaeology, the classical collections I am most intimately involved with are on paper – specifically, archives associated with the finding, collection and distribution of collections, and archives related to the popular reception of collections. This includes, most recently, women who were giving public lectures and courses incorporating classical collections (or reproductions of them) in places like the British Museum. As Co-Investigator on the 3-year AHRC funded project “Beyond Notability: Re-Evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage 1870-1950” I have been exploring the lives and work of many of the women who were lecturing on classical collections, but also women who were involved in researching and excavating them in the UK and beyond.
What is your role in relation to them?
I’m a researcher, so, I research! In Beyond Notability my work centres around pulling together and analysing information about women who were working in the field of classical archaeology (among other subjects) in a variety of different ways. They might be lecturers, or excavators, or collectors, or artists, or authors, or all of the above. The information on them comes from a variety of different places – archives in museums such as the British Museum, but also records in universities and learned societies, for example. Each place might only have a little information, but added together those nuggets can become something more substantial.
The Beyond Notability project was based in part on my research and activities relating to the classical collections of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology at the University of Reading, where I was Research Officer 2019-20. A lot of the work I did at the Ure drew directly on the Museum’s incredible archive, University Special Collections and other University of Reading Departmental collections, which I’m happy to say were incorporated into three temporary exhibitions held at the Ure.
I’ve also worked on various history of archaeology projects some of which overlap with classical collections and sites. For example, the archive of George and Agnes Horsfield was a big part of my PhD research; they lived in the 1930s at Jerash in Jordan, where there are very prominent Greco-Roman remains. George Horsfield was Chief Inspector of the Antiquities Department in Jordan (at the time Transjordan) and he and Agnes Horsfield spent a lot of time at Jerash as well as travelling and documenting other archaeological sites in Jordan. They’re probably most notably associated with their work at Petra.
What are you working on at the moment?
Writing the project monograph for Beyond Notability, and continuing to add and augment entries in our database of over 900 women!
What are your priorities for finding out more about the collections?
Being employed on a fixed term contract, it’s not practical for me to have too many long-term research priorities that I might not have the funding to undertake, though I keep various research strands ticking over on the back burner. But for the time being, my priorities are mainly to do with research that will enable me to finish the project monograph.
What is your favourite object, and why?
Oh this is a very difficult question, but I think – as it’s something I’m currently working on – it has to be archives relating to the women giving University Extension courses (effectively further education) at the British Museum and in various places in London. In the 1890s a number of women were giving these courses, and the extension archives are incredibly illuminating evidence of the practicalities of this kind of work.
What would you like to happen with the collections in the future?
My hope is that archives held in museums become more visible and accessible. They are critical to helping us understand the wider histories and contexts of collections. Knowing more about these wider histories and contexts means we can create new narratives about collections and artefacts and ensure they remain relevant now and in the future.
They are also a rich field for creative re-interpretation – we’ve experimented with this as part of Beyond Notability by collaborating with storyteller Vanessa Woolf. Vanessa has created four unique stories on five women from our research – two of whom were associated with Hadrian’s Wall. I’d also like to see more works of fiction that deal with classical collections/collections histories, taking this stuff to (potentially) new audiences. In 2022 Strange Relics: Stories of Archaeology and the Supernatural 1895-1954, the anthology I co-edited with Katy Soar, was published with Handheld Press. There are a few classical collections-themed stories in Strange Relics, but it would be great to see some new ones being written – and even better if they drew on the wealth of detail available in museum archives.
Where can we find out more?
You’ll find me on Twitter @amalexathorn and Bluesky @amalexathorn.bsky.social
Personal website: www.amarathornton.com
Blog: www.readingroomnotes.com
Beyond Notability website: www.beyondnotability.org
Beyond Notability database: https://beyond-notability.wikibase.cloud/wiki/Main_Page
Tour through the database: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPKJ99r4FGY
Vanessa’s four stories: https://beyondnotability.org/biographical/four-stories-for-beyond-notability/
Ure Routes blog for the Ure Museum: https://research.reading.ac.uk/curiosi/ure-routes/
Egypt in Reading Exhibition (Ure Museum): https://research.reading.ac.uk/curiosi/egypt-in-reading/
Hidden Women Exhibition (Ure Museum): https://research.reading.ac.uk/curiosi/hidden-women-digital/
Allen Seaby and Archaeology: https://research.reading.ac.uk/curiosi/allen-seaby-and-archaeology/
Classical Collections Network 