London's history found in a pile of dirt

Monday (7/8):  Museum of London Archaeological Archives

As someone who has studied archaeology - I have a BA in Anthropology - this site was such a delight to visit.  Dan, the Assistant Curator, was our guide for the morning, and as he led us around the facility, I felt more and more like this is the kind of institution that I would love to work at when I enter the field.

Located in a converted steel tubing warehouse, now called the Morton Wheeler House, the London Archaeological Archive and Research Center (LAARC) contains the largest archaeological archive in the world.  Also located in the building is the Museum of London Archaeology Department, which consists of 120 or so field staff who actually do the digging.

The collections range from prehistoric items, like flints, to the 20th century.  One main collecting focus is the Social and Working History collections, which consists of artifacts concerning objects of everyday life.  The collection is housed in 6 themed rooms, and Dan took us into the one housing toys and games.  The rows and rows of metal cabinets hold everything from board games to puppets, and everything in between.  In all rooms, temperature and humidity are carefully monitored to ensure the proper preservation atmosphere for these precious items.  As we made our way through the facility there was just so many interesting things to see; a telephone switchboard from Buckingham Palace, the royal urinal from the Royal Opera House, and a cannonball used as a Shakespearean play prop.  The facility will accept anything that from London history that they don't have already, so they just have so much.

We walked through the processing area, which is where the material from the archaeological sites is brought in and processed - washed, examined, catalog, and packaged.  Each item is given a 3-letter, 2-number code, based on the excavation it came from.  Additional numbers are added if the item is more unusual, and ultimately displayable.  Because the collection is so large, packaging has been standardized for efficiency, continuity, and of course, space.  The displayable items are packaged differently, and kept separately from the bulk materials archive, which is used primarily for research.  All paper records, site maps, and stratigraphic diagrams from excavations are also kept, ensuring the totality of the context for future users and researchers.