YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
Bringing History to Life: Creating a collage inspired by objects found at Birdoswald Roman Fort – YAC Kendal, Cumbria, Dec 16th, 2006
For the December meeting of Kendal’s Young Archaeologists’ Club I decided to do another crafty objects-based session, where the kids could not only learn how to handle and draw real Roman artefacts, but also how to interpret them and think about how they were used or how they were worn in Roman times. We were really fortunate that Tim Padley, Keeper of Archaeology at Tullie House, Carlisle, let us borrow the most amazing artefacts from their collection of objects from the Roman fort at Birdoswald, amongst which were the gold earring, the eagle and standards intaglio and best of all – the unique little genus, a deity that usually comes in threes and appears to have been local to the North West. I’d thought we could use the artefacts to inspire the children’s imagination and have them draw pictures of ‘Life at Birdoswald’ showing how the artefacts were used in an ‘every day’ – context. The kids did SO well: we ended up with drawings of, e.g. an altar (where the little genus was reunited with his two lost ‘friends’), a jeweller’s shop (where the jeweller was about to sell the gold earring), a document and candle (and the seal with eagle intaglio about to be used to seal the letter) and last but not least, a scene from a tavern where two Roman soldiers were involved in gambling (showing the bone die found at Birdoswald)!
See pictures of this session in our image gallery!
