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Description: | The core of the collection was gathered and described by the 19th century antiquarian J. R. Mortimer, and comprises 66,000 objects excavated from one of Britain's foremost archaeological areas - the Yorkshire Wolds.
The 1930s and 1940s saw excavations at Brough and Elmswell, North Ferriby, Eastburn, Barton-upon-Humber and elsewhere. These recovered prehistoric, Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon assemblages, particularly from the Humber shore. Natural science, foreign and general collections were lost during World War II, though the recovery of material from the bombed Albion Street museum was achieved in 1989. The Mortimer Collection had fortunately been moved from this site.
Rural excavations from the 1950s to the 1970s promoted modern standards of fieldwork and research, adding value to the finds and archives they generated. These included prehistoric Garton/Wetwang; Roman villas and farms at Rudston, Brantingham and Welton; Anglo-Saxon cremations at Sancton; and the medieval village of Wharram Percy. From 1987, at West Heslerton, computer-assisted recording helped analyse ancient landscapes, maintaining the link between the collection and professional innovation.
From 1964, Hull Museums led archaeological responses to urban redevelopment in the region. Stratigraphic investigation of waterlogged medieval deposits recovered artefacts of organic materials, and a wealth of environmental evidence. In the 1970s, work centred on Hull, moving to Beverley in the 1980s. The 1990s saw publication of most of this work.
The collection also includes some 200 Egyptian objects, which are described separately. Other objects are known to have come from the sites of Tell el-Fara (Beth Pelet) and Tell Jemma (Gerar) in ancient Palestine (excavated by Petrie with the British School of Archaeology in Egypt, 1927-1930).
The Prehistory of the region is particularly well represented, with grave-goods and human remains from the Yorkshire Wolds dated from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, and an extensive stone and flint collection. Thwing presents a centre of Bronze Age authority, to accompany barrow burials on the Wolds and votive wetland hoards. The Garton/Wetwang cemetery and settlement complex is the largest such Iron Age site excavated in Britain. Prehistoric boats from the Humber region include the technically sophisticated Bronze Age North Ferriby boats, a primitive Iron Age dug-out | Subjects: | Archaeology | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | Address: | 36 High Street
Hull,
HU1 1NQ | FAX: | 01482 613 710 | Telephone: | 01482 613 902 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:1188 | Go to resource |
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