Projects

Funding of £53,012 from the Museum Recognition Capital Fund will improve the displays of the Zoology Museum. The Zoology Building foyer is to be tidied and made into a more welcoming space, without compromising its function as the entrance to an academic building. Work will include new signage an an exhibition titled ‘Aberdeen Naturalists’. The upper gallery of the museum will be tidied up and de-cluttered of cases, but the main focus of the project will be in the lower gallery.

This gallery is laid out in a taxonomic fashion pretty much as it was when it was completed in the 1970s. The project aims to preserve the museum’s original taxonomic organisation with some tidying up of case layout, and will add an introductory display about evolutionary biology to make the interpretation of the collections more accessible. There will also be improvements to the lighting of the galleries and display cases and storage to improve the care of the collection.

Project Board Minutes

• 23 November 2012
• 18 January 2013

Supported by a £40,000 Museum Recognition Fund grant, this project will significantly improve the documentation and storage of the University’s collection of over 3000 scientific instruments. We will engage experts in Aberdeen and elsewhere to share their knowledge to inventory and catalogue the collection and a further estimated 700 items that are currently completely inaccessible due to poor storage.

A priority is building collaboration with museums and academics, with an inaugural seminar and then expert visits, culminating in a workshop/partnership event for other museums and experts to share knowledge and experiences.

Building on studies of Beakers and early metalwork in North-East Scotland, the Leverhulme Trust-funded Beakers and Bodies Project was established in the University of Aberdeen’s Museums to undertake in-depth analysis and interpretation of this particular region.

The project focused on all Beaker-associated burials (and related funerary traditions) within the North-East, including archival research, osteological analysis, a critical appraisal of existing dates, evaluation of burial assemblages, 40 new radiocarbon dates and stable isotope analyses of human bones, accompanied by summary work in adjacent areas.

The Beakers and Bodies Project was funded by the Leverhulme Trust (grant F/00 152/S). The project team, led by Neil Curtis, included Dr Margaret Hutchison, Dr Mandy Jay, Ray Kidd, Alexandra Shepherd, Ian Shepherd, Dr Alison Sheridan and Margot Wright, with Neil Wilkin as project researcher.

• The Moon, the Bonfire and the Beaker? Analysing white inlay from Beaker pottery in Aberdeenshire
• Beakers and Bodies Project: new perspectives on death and burial in the Early Bronze Age of North-East Scotland (lecture)

The University has varied museum collections, as well as its collections of archives and rare books. Items that might be linked together, perhaps from a particular person or a place, have often become scattered among these collections.

Until recently it has been difficult to locate information to reunite materials that might once have been together, but a Recognition Fund project improived the catalogues and highlighted a few examples of connections between our collections.