For the final day of the project everyone was hard at work editing their interviews. The group did brilliantly editing 15 minute interviews into 5 minutes or less in just a few hours. At the end of a long afternoon we listened back to some of them. They were fantastic and really opened up some of the personal stories behind these Riots. 

 What next?

The interviews are currently being transcribed and the many photographs sorted. We’ll then be uploading the audio, transcriptions and photographs to our main Museum website, so watch this space! 

See more of the photos from the project here.

Day 4

It’s the day of the interviews and we’re all prepared.  Some of us are up and out interviewing on the streets of Brixton on the front line reliving the experience of the 1981 riots.

A few of us admitted to feeling nervous, but speaking to the interviewees prior to the interviews really helped to calm the nerves and provided valuable information for the main interviews.

Our official photographer Frewine Solomon was joined by another photographer from Time Out magazine who took pictures of us in action, and some of us were interviewed – it’ll be interesting what they say about us!

After doing our interviews we sat quietly and did our logging – hopefully this will help us with the editing process.

See photos from the project here.

Day 3 

A journalist from The Guardian came down to the workshop to find out more about the project and interviewed us about what we were doing. She seemed interested in the project and wanted to find out more about us.

The last day to prepare for our interviews, we have been given a list of interviewees.  We discussed what questions to ask, how we wanted to present our interviews and were given the interviewees contact details to introduce ourselves.

We learnt how to edit using Audacity a free programme we downloaded off the internet. It was a good eye opener into world of editing. Our telephone conversation with the interviewees was really useful for gaining background information for the interviews. We ended the day presenting our interview plan to the group.

See photographs from the project here.

One type of pathology that affects the teeth is calculus. This is caused by a build up of plaque in the mouth that sticks to the surfaces of the teeth. These deposits can become mineralized or calcified and remain attached to the teeth. Calculus is observed as hard deposits of  yellow or brown coloured material located above the gum line (supragingival) or below (subgingival). It can range from slight deposits to large build ups, that can cover most of a tooth surface.

 Dental caries or cavities are a common type of dental pathology that continue to cause much pain for sufferers today. The break down of foods such as sugars, carbohydrates and starch by bacteria in the mouth, can create acids that attack the hard surfaces of teeth. This can lead to the development of caries (small holes and cavities) that can be observed on the enamel and root surfaces. If this destruction continues, extensive decay or gross caries of the entire tooth can occur, leading to early loss.

Carious decay and the build up of calculus on the surfaces of teeth can result in infection and inflammation of the soft tissues surrounding the tooth or gingivitis (gum disease). If this inflammation passes to the bone it can result in the resorbtion of the alveolar bone of the tooth socket (periodontal disease). This may lead to the exposure of the root and early loss as the tooth becomes loose in its socket.

If infection reaches the pulp cavity, inflammation may result in a build up of puss around the region of the tooth root. A large cavity or sinus may form, penetrating the outer surface of the bone, allowing the puss to escape. This can be seen as a large hole or abscess in the region of bone above or below the infected tooth and may also result in early loss.

Another type of dental pathology observed is defects to the enamel surface of a tooth. These are seen as hypoplastic lines, pits and grooves casued by thinning of the enamel surface when the tooth was developing during childhood. These may indicate disturbances during growth, caused by a variety of factors including dietary deficiencies, hormonal imbalances, and disease (Chamberlain 1998: 37).

Analysis of skeletons from the post-medieval (1843-1854) catholic mission of Sts. Mary and Michael, Whitechapel, London has revealed high rates of dental disease. Eighty one percent of adults showed evidence of dental caries, 90.7% had calculus, 78.6% suffered from periodontal disease, 35.9% had dental abscesses, 77.8 % had lost teeth during life and 54.4% showed hypoplastic defects of the tooth enamel. The teeth of children were also affected with 33.9% presenting cavities of at least one tooth, 12.1% with calculus and 10.2% with enamel hypoplasia.

Day 2

We learned about the social media tools we could use to broadcast our own stories and opinions on certain matters using the internet, using websites called Flickr, Youtube and Wordpress.  Then we had to create our strategies on how to present our interviews: thinking about what questions to ask, and whether to add pictures or sound effects.  After we had done that we interviewed two Museum of London staff members: Paul Clifford and Martin Kaufman, who were living in and around Brixton at the time of the riots, about what they remembered from the time.  We learnt that interviewing isn’t just reading questions from a piece of paper, but rather listening to the answers given by the interviewee and building further questions from that.  It was harder than we thought.

Day 1

This is a project run by the Museum of London,  to bring the story of the Brixton riots in 1981 to life.  We will be interviewing people from the Brixton area of that time.   We are a group of Londoners,  given the chance to learn reporting and interviewing skills,  with the help of sounddelivery.  We weren’t around at the time of the riots, but we want to learn more.  We started the day with a bit of history from a community historian Angelina Osborne  dating back to the 16th century up to the date of the riots in  April 1981. We learned the key factors that lead to the riot like racism, anger, housing, unemployment and the introduction of the sus laws which gave the police power to target the people of the Brixton area . We ended the afternoon with sounddelivery training us on the equipment and showing  the different techniques of reporting and interviewing.

We recorded our thoughts of Brixton on our first day, as part of the training. 

My Brixton - First ever interviews by the participants of the project

Click here to see photographs from the first day of the project!

We have cleaned out the databases now and have improved their security so that hopefully this “attack vector” is no longer open. Apologies for any problems you may have experienced - my embarassment is complete, because this is not the first time this year that some of our databases have been compromised in this way! Do let us know if you notice anything odd - such as pop-up dialog boxes, or pages only loading partially - so we can fix problems quickly. Otherwise please enjoy the sites.

• www.museumoflondon.org.uk
• www.museumoflondon.org.uk/docklands
• www.museumoflondon.org.uk/archaeology

In phase two and three, we will be auditing all our websites, holding audience evaluations to find out what our visitors think, and planning and implementing the migration of all our websites into one single site. This will involve analysis of our current website structures and planning the future architecture and redesigning of all the templates within our websites, including our microsites.

We would love to find out what you think of the websites and how it might develop in the future. So tell us what you think of the sites and the new ‘tabs’ that combine all our three venues together by sending me your comments to: webmanager@museumoflondon.org.uk.

Please note that we are aware some things may not display properly or some links may be broken, but please bear with us while we go through this transition period.

Thank you for all your continued support.

   One such diseases is gout, this results from a build up of uric acid in the body and may be associated with a high alcohol intake and diet rich in protein and fatty foods (Roberts and Manchester 2005). Crystals of uric acid may form in the joints and lead to inflammation. This can affect the joints of most limbs but is most commonly observed in the first metatarsophalangeal joint (big toe), causing joint pain and stiffness. Over a period of time this swelling may lead to erosion of the bone at the joint. This can be seen in skeletal remains as punched out lesions with overhanging edges (Rogers and Waldron 1995).  Six adult individuals (6/268: 2.2%) from the Catholic mission of Saints Mary and Michael, Whitechapel, London, displayed evidence of gout. All had erosive lesions of the big toe.

 Another disease that may be related to a rich diet and obesity is Diffuse idiopathic hyperostosis or DISH. This is caused by the ossification (turning to bone) of ligaments in the spine and other sites of the body such as areas of tendon and muscle attachments. This can result in individual vertebrae of the spine becoming fused together, with the new bone having the appearence of dripping candle wax (Rogers and Waldron 1995). Two males, both aged over 46 years at death were diagnosed with DISH in the Saints Mary and Michael cemetery population. Both showed the typical fusion of over four continuous vertebrae.

The occurrence of these diseases, when compared to an entire cemetery population, can help us to learn about and understand the health and lifestyle of people in the past. They may help reveal the types of diets eaten,  the foods available, and make inferences about a populations background and status. 

Late:Create is an exciting monthly workshop where members get creative using our collections for inspiration. 

This month artist Emily Candela worked with the group to create a huge temporary sculpture inspired by the Museum of London’s 1559 painting, Nimrod supervising the construction of the Tower of Babel by Martin Van Valckenborgh.

Liam, a member of the group explains how the sculpture was made:

‘This months Late:Create was sculpture. The inspiration was a building called the Tower of Babel. Instead of copying it from a picture we covered it in all kinds of materials so it symbolises the building giving it a new artistic look. I hope you can see the resemblance!’

Late: Create is free and takes place 6 – 8pm on the 1st Thursday of every month and is for people who are currently out of work.  Future workshops include creative writing and sculpture.  The sessions are coordinated by the Museum’s Inclusion Officer, Lucie Fitton. To find out more contact community@museumoflondon.org.uk  

We have been very busy working behind the screens to migrate the information from our ‘Group’ website to the Museum of London website and ensuring the rebrand is reflected in the Museum of London Docklands website (previously Museum in Docklands) and the Museum of London Archaeology website (Previously Museum of London Archaeology Service, or MoLAS).

You will see the new logos and redesigned sites when you visit us on 14 October, and the ‘Group’ website will no longer be updated and will eventually cease to exist.

This is just phase one of our plans. We aim to move all Museum of London content into a single website and will be planning further design changes and architectural changes to the site.

We would like to find out what our visitors think of the websites as of 14 October and how it might develop in the future. Please send your comments to: webmanager@museumoflondon.org.uk.

And if you participate in our focus groups to tell us what you think of our new website design, you will receive £30!

If you are interested in getting involved, and giving us your views, please visit:

www.creativeresearch.co.uk/surveys/mol/molrecruit.htm

Please note we are looking to hear from:

• Individuals aged 16 and above,
• Families (one adult aged 25 to 50 and one child aged 5 to 15 per family),
• People from both the UK and from overseas, and
• You do not need to be familiar with the Museum or its subject matter to take part.

As well as creating space for future archives, we are also promoting inclusivity and learning opportunities and shall be running specialist workshops for volunteers.

There is a new section of these blog pages specifically for the project so have a look and see what we’re up to.

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/laarcvip/

As part of the project we welcome back the University of the Third Age (U3A) who shall be improving the archive for MSL87 - one of the Roman Eastern Cemetery Sites. This side of the project has its own website and can be found at:

http://laarcvipu3a.wetpaint.com/

And don’t forget our archaeology blog pages, where each month we run the object of the month competition. Click below to find out September’s winner

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/archaeology

 Woo hoo! LAARChaeology is taking over!!!

The first conference was organised by the Wellcome Trust. This has a well established interest in Bioarchaeology, the use of scientific methods in archaeology. The Wellcome Trust has provided a valuable source for funding research projects in the past, including the Wellcome Osteological Research Database (WORD) used by the Museum of London to record Skeletons. The Wellcome Collection is also the home to the current ‘Skeletons, Londons buried bones exhibition’.

The meeting was designed to bring the fields of archaeology, biology and medicine together and provide a forum for archaeologists and scientists to meet and develop new ideas. There was a range of fascinating talks about the latest advances in ancient DNA and other molecules obtained from archaeological remains. These can be used to answer questions and tell stories about human origins, development and movements in the past. They have also been used to show what people ate, how healthy they were and even what colour hair they may have had. Biomolecules extracted from human bone can also be used to determine how diseases and illnesses such as TB may have affected people in the past. This information can be used to help understand how these pathogens spread and aid our knowledge of disease in the modern world. 

Next I headed to Oxford for the 10th annual conference of the British Association of Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology. Again, this was a great chance to meet and talk to prominent people, colleagues and those interested in the field of human osteology. There were interesting talks about the use of biomolecules in archaeology and also new research into changes to the body before and after death. This included how human remains can tell us about an individuals lifestyle, work and health. Skeletal remains may also show how someone adapted to different environments and activities and also the treatment of a body after death. My colleague Natasha Powers discussed the recent findings of a MoLAS excavation at the grounds of the Royal London Hospital that uncovered coffins containing dissected body portions and evidence of scalpel cuts, sawing and preparation of specimens.

Another part of conferences are the poster displays. These are gallery-like areas where people present current topics, work and research interests, in a poster format for people to view and ask questions. This year myself and colleague Don Walker presented posters about our recent work using computed radiography and also the evidence we have found for pipe smoking.

Late:Create is an exciting monthly workshop where members get creative using our collections for inspiration. 

The workshop was lead by poet Meryl Pugh, and here, our regular blogger Liam, tells us more:

‘This months Late:Create was poetry. We were taught that there are different ways of writing poetry – some rhyme and some don’t. We learnt how about consonance, which means using similar sounds in words.  For example, bored and board. We also talked about assonance, which means using the same sounds such as ‘ard’ in lard and hard.
 
Next we started writing. We each had an object from the museum and had to describe its features, what it was used for and who used it. We went into the galleried to collect this information. Next we were ready to write a poem. Meryl helped us by writing the first word or two of each sentence and we filled in the rest using the ideas and words we had gathered.’

Late: Create is free and takes place 6 – 8pm on the 1st Thursday of every month and is for people who are currently out of work. Future workshops include sculpture and hat-making. The sessions are coordinated by the Museum’s Inclusion Officer, Lucie Fitton. To find out more contact community@museumoflondon.org.uk

Firstly, the site has proved to be quite a success, at least compared with our modest expectations. Actual visits and pageviews have only crept up gradually since the launch, albeit with a few great flurries of activity. We get around 3000 visits a month and people tend to look at 7 or 8 pages per visit. But user reaction has been growing inexorably, with more people contacting us through the website every week as they find their ancestors or seek the photographer of a photo they own.  I think that Google is sending a lot more of our visits now, which means people with very specific interests and questions - which you should probably expect with a database of 10,000 people! Still I don’t think we were expecting quite so many inquiries, and it’s often hard to offer more than is already on the site. Tunjay, who is the administrator in our Later Department, does everything possible to give a helpful answer, but the fact is that we at the Museum of London aren’t the source of or experts about the data; that role belongs to David Webb, whose many years of research he generously contributed to the database.

The second reason for an update is that we were contacted while ago by the production team of a TV programme that’s due to air very shortly, and which just might feature the website, since it helped in researching the family history that the programme explores. I don’t know if it will actually be mentioned, but it would be nice validation of David Webb’s work if it was.

Both of these illustrate that family history and genealogy are a very important part of the reason that a site like this is interesting to a wide audience. Soon after the launch, as we started to get inquiries from family historians, I ventured onto their turf to ask in a couple of forums what we could do to make a site like this useful to them. The answer was basically “not a lot, it’s already what we need”; that’s gratifying, but I suspect there’s always more we could do. One thing might be to offer downloadable datasets; another (perhaps less for the benefit of genealogists) could be to integrate the biographies with related resources on photography, geography, social history, archive collections etc.

As well as inquries, there is another kind of contact we get through the site, where people write to add to or correct our information, and this is really exciting. Again, we pass the information on to David Webb for him to examine and process as he sees fit. So far, because of this roundabout flow of information, we have not re-integrated any information, but I would hope to do this in the future so if you have any amendments for us, please, please keep on sending them.

One final thing: I created a simple REST API for those geeks out there who want to play with the database. Sadly the quality of the address data isn’t that brilliant at present, which limits what we can do in terms of mashups until I get a chance to crunch it a bit, but if you want to play then please drop me a line and I’ll give you the keys.

So to wrap up, I would love to know your suggestions for how we might improve the site. Tell us things like

• what sort of information do you need that’s not obvious at present?
• would you like any tools to collect or download information?
• would it be useful to integrate a wiki with the site, so that each person can have a page that our site’s visitors can add to and edit?

Stick your ideas in the comments or drop us a line.

Starting in 2006 and continuing this year I have been lucky enough to spend leave time working on an archaeological project in Jordan. I would recommend this way of spending some leave time to anyone from MoLAS.

The project is based at two discrete sites near the village of Safi in southern Jordan near the southern end of the Dead Sea. The project was inspired by and jointly run by Dr K. D. Politis (Dino) head of the Hellenic Society for Near Eastern Research. The first excavation season took place in 2002 run by Dino and Glasgow University. Subsequent seasons have run from 2006-8 with the excavations carried out by Adelaide University.

The Tawahin es-Sukhar site is that of a medieval sugar mill while around 500 metres distant is the site of the ancient and medieval city of Zoara which is shown on the early Byzantine mosaic Madaba map. My job was to identify and record the post-Bronze Age pottery from both sites.

The sugar installation was in use from roughly the 12th/13th century to the 15th century. Sugar cane was widely grown in the Jordan Valley and Levant coast in this period. Water from the hills above the Valley was led by channel to a drop where it turned mill wheels that crushed the cane. The cane was then boiled in iron vats and the juice poured into pottery moulds and jars. An upper sugar cone jar sat in a lower molasses collecting jar. The refined fraction was cooled and solidified in the upper jar which then had to be broken to remove the sugar loaf. The heavy molasses fraction passed to the lower collecting jar. Hence the site has huge mounds of broken sugar pots. Several other similar sites are known in the Levant.

This refining technology was used in the same way for several centuries. By the 16th century Cyprus was a major producer for the European market. By the 18th century the centre of gravity of production was located in the Caribbean. Sugar was refined using raw sugar from the Caribbean in 18th century York and Southampton. It was also refined in London at several sites such as Bishopsgate Goods Yard (BGX05) where the sugar cone pots are much slimmer and narrower than the pots used in the medieval Levant and at Limehouse (Jarret 2005).

I attempted to form a sugar pot typology based on published parallels. It appears that the industry may have begun at this site by the time the Crusaders arrived on the scene for a short duration in the 12th century. Certainly the sugar pots along with other pottery were manufactured at the site as evidenced by wasters.

In all the excavation seasons separate digs explored parts of the ancient and medieval city. Nabataean architectural stone and small sherds of pottery date to around the 2nd century BC. Roman, Early Byzantine and medieval (Islamic) periods follow with a mosaic floor dating possibly to the 7th or 8th century AD uncovered this year. Huge quantities of pottery awaited me. Some had been packed wet and had to be laid out to dry. Beautiful sherds of high status early glazed wares may have been imports from the Iraq region as well as being locally made. Moulded cream ware jugs of the Abassid period jostled with pieces of cooking pot, jars and basins. The material included a few sherds of Early Byzantine orange burnished dishes and bowls classified as Late Roman Fine Ware by John Hayes (1972). Later glazed wares were common along with a few pieces that may belong to the Crusader 12th century. The pottery indicates a termination of occupation at the site by the 15th century in the Mamluk period. This later period was characterised by glazed fritwares imported from Syria, handmade painted coarsewares and by the pottery of the sugar production industry.

Petrological analysis and glaze analysis have been carried out on material from the first excavation season at Glasgow University and we await publication of the results.

This has been a wonderful opportunity to handle a wealth of ceramic material from this interesting and beautiful part of the world and I hope that I will be able to return to complete the job as much pottery still remains to be recorded in the dig house where a day’s work is concluded with a refreshing glass of arak and ice watching the sun go down over the Jordan Valley.

Follow the link to the archaeology blog to see which lucky losers are in the running and vote for your favourite. Result will be announced on Friday 5th Sept

Recent analysis of over 700 skeletons from the Catholic Mission of Saints Mary and Michael, Whitechapel, London, who died between 1843 and 1854, has demonstrated how evidence of smoking can also be observed in the bones of past populations.

 Fifty eight adult skeletons (58/268: 21.6%) displayed wear patterns to the surfaces of the teeth. These were often smooth, rounded grooves resulting from long term pipe smoking. In many cases a circular hole or ‘pipe notch’ was clearly visable when the upper and lower jaws were closed. Thirty two of the individuals with pipe notches also showed a brown coloured staining to the inside of the teeth. Pipe notches were found on a number of young adults. These may have developed over several years suggesting that smoking could have been taken up at a younger age. Adult smokers were also found to be more likely associated with lesions to the inside surfaces of the ribs, possibly the result of lung disease resulting from smoking.

This evidence may help provide information about how smoking affected the health of an individual and if it made more susceptible to other diseases and the infections compared to non smokers. If smoking was more commonplace amongst the Victorian working class, this may be used as an indicator of status and possibly gender. This may also help better our understanding and awareness of smoking in the modern world that is reported to kill 5.4 million people each year (World Health Organisation 2008).

A year on from the smoking ban, the museum of London looks into the history of smoking in London and life in the captial since the ban with a new exhibition ‘ The Big Smoke’. More information can be found at the following link…

http://www.molg.org.uk/English/NewsRoom/Current/The+Big+Smoke.htm

Alongside my regular duties looking after the Sainsbury Archive, over the past year I’ve been busy creating ‘Story of a Supermarket’, a new website for the collection, which is now live within the Museum in Docklands website.

The Sainsbury Archive at the Museum in Docklands is a unique collection of photographs, documents and objects which tells the story of Sainsbury’s from its foundation in 1869 to the present day.  It’s a fascinating and varied collection, including everything from old packaging and recipes to Victorian tiles and staff uniforms.

This new website replaces the Sainsbury’s Virtual Museum educational site which was launched ten years ago. This popular site, which enabled schools to explore the archive via a virtual museum building, needed significant updating. We therefore decided to create a new site using the Museum of London’s content management system and page templates, retaining popular elements of the Virtual Museum, but also adding extra information and images from the archive to help answer some of the 400+ enquiries received each year.

We started work on the project last July, consulting with local primary school teachers, retired Sainsbury’s staff and people who had contacted the archive with an enquiry over the last couple of years. The results were sometimes surprising, but gave us a clear picture of what people liked and didn’t like about the old site, and the kinds of information they were looking for.

We frequently receive enquiries about aspects of social history such as food and nutrition during wartime and the employment of women.  We therefore decided to create pages for a range of popular topics, arranged under the themes of ‘People’, ‘Places’ ‘Products’ and ‘Progress’.  Researching and writing this content proved time-consuming, and we have tried to find the right level of detail, so that the information is useful, but not overwhelming…

To add a personal touch to the official records in the archive, there is also a contributory area for visitors to add their memories of working and shopping at Sainsbury’s. All stories submitted will be added to the collection and highlights will be published on the website.

For schools at Key Stage 2, our Learning consultant trawled the archive to produce six curriculum-linked units exploring the history of food, shops and shopping. Linked to these are classroom activities, interactive quizzes, a timeline, and a scrapbook of images to download.

For informal family learning, as well as the quizzes and scrapbook, we have recycled popular features and activities from the Virtual Museum, including old-fashioned packaging to colour and make, the chance to ‘Explore a Store’ from 1909 and ‘Harry’s story’, a day in the life of a  Sainsbury’s delivery boy in 1912.

The project has grown quite a bit since its inception and the resulting website is a large and detailed resource. The collection is highly visual, so I’m particularly pleased that the new site features around 300 images. ‘Story of a supermarket’ has actually been live since May 2008, but following testing and approval by external stakeholders, we have now begun to tell people it’s there!

We’re also planning to showcase the site at ‘The way we shopped’, a day of free talks, film screenings and activities inspired by the Sainsbury Archive, which is being held at the Museum in Docklands on Saturday 4th October.
‘Story of a Supermarket’ is located within the Museum in Docklands website under ‘Collections Online’ and can also be found at: www.museumindocklands.org.uk/sainsburyarchive

Late:Create is an exciting monthly workshop where members get creative using our collections for inspiration.   

Photographer Fil Gierlinski lead August’s Late:Create session, and the group learned how to create that perfect picture. 

Our regular blogger, Liam, tells us more:

‘This month’s Late:Create was photography. Fil, the photographer, showed us how a picture captures the texture and shape of an object. When learnt how to take pictures close up using the camera’s macro setting. We paired up and went outside taking close-ups of anything we could find. We took photos of walls, railings, pavements, stairs and anything with an unusual surface. We produced some eye-catching images. We then took the cameras into the museum galleries and from different angles captured an object that would tell us a story about it - its shape - its texture - and what it was. Finally we watched a slideshow of everyone’s work.’

See more photos of the workshop here!

Late: Create is free and takes place 6 – 8pm on the 1^st Thursday of every month and is for people who are currently out of work.  Future workshops include creative writing and sculpture.  The sessions are coordinated by the Museum’s Inclusion Officer, Lucie Fitton. To find out more contact community@museumoflondon.org.uk  

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/archaeology/2008/08/08/julys-winner/

“If you wander around St Paul’s Cathedral, you’ll see some curious modern pavements in the South Churchyard, opened this summer. The area has been landscaped following small “evaluation” trenches excavated by Robin Wroe-Brown and his team and a watching brief on the initial landscaping excavations by David Sankey and Aleks Cetera, with expert input by the then diocesan archaeological advisor John Schofield.

The “new” pavement is a modern representation of the remains of the medieval church and illustrates the square cloister surrounding the octagonal chapter house.  [Image from the Telegraph article, St Paul’s Cathedral opens new South Churchyard]

The new design is a simplified version of the original. For instance, the original pavement of the chapterhouse (a building attached to a cathedral, church, or monastery and used as a meeting place for the religious fraternity) had different-sized panels near the door on the west side and equal -sized panels in the east (see photo below).  These floor panels are equal-sized throughout the new version.

The medieval internal pier-bases and ribs (below) were far more intricately carved.    However, the use of Purbeck stone for paving and the ribs and yellow limestone for the walls does accurately represent the original materials.  It would be wrong to quibble about detail when what has been achieved is a worthy attempt to evoke the medieval cathedral that lies below.  After all, to accurately represent the originals would require a tall structure that would obscure the view of Wrens cathedral, and a user-friendly picnic or meeting area with modern wheelchair access to the cathedral.

Rather, I’d encourage anyone to mentally wander around the space and imagine the tall chapterhouse with it’s imposing buttresses dividing large stained-glass windows, surrounded by the square 2-storey cloister with open tracery on the ground floor, overlooking the minuscule lawns. And the hunched figures of medieval clerics, plotting or worrying about relations with the king or the Pope in Rome, or the rival Pope in Avignon. Even if you can’t visit it, you might get the picture.”

This video explains more about the old St Paul’s Cathedral.

They’re only static maps, I’ll add dynamic maps (so you can zoom, move around, etc) if I get a chance when I’m back from holiday.

http://mymuseumoflondon.org.uk/blogs/archaeology/2008/08/01/object-of-the-month-july-08/

The display of over 50 photographs in a montage and a short film draws attention to the forgotten story of the Maroons who refused to be enslaved, survived in remote parts of the Caribbean islands and helped destabilise the plantation system.

The project is the brainchild of hip hop photographer, Jennie Baptiste, who guided a group of six young Londoners who call themselves the Linx, teaching them research, communications and photography skills. The group of 14 to 19 year olds then researched the history of African resistance to slavery and visited the Maroons in the town of Accompong in the Jamaican mountains to take the photographs.

Linx member and 19 year old art student, Asia Bharj, said:

‘Never in my life did I think I would be part of this amazing project, being with the Linx I overcame personal challenges which allowed me to grow mentally and to become a better person.’

Don’t miss out - the display closes on August 31!  There’s information on how to plan your visit to the Museum in Docklands or find out more about the community exhibition in our newsroom article, Journey to Accompong.  Entry to the display is free, but there is a charge for entry to the Museum in Docklands itself.