Staffordshire Hoard update
Post categories: Anglo-Saxon,ÌýUK museums
| 17:23 UK time, Tuesday, 23 March 2010
You might have read a post here last Friday - or the Friday before last, depending on how you like to count your Fridays - about the Staffordshire Hoard.Martin Ellis, from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, talked about why it had caught the public imagination and why it resonated particularly strongly with the people of the Midlands.
Well now it seems that they will be able to feel those historic vibrations whenever they want, as the appeal to buy the Staffordshire Hoard has announced that it has needed to keep it in the Midlands.
This means the objects will eventually go on permanent display at in Birmingham and at the in Stoke on Trent, only 25 miles and 40 miles, respectively, from where the hoard was uncovered.
Fundraising continues to help towards the conservation and eventual display of the 1,600 items in the hoard and the at Birmingham Museum continues for another three weeks.
- The image is of a gold hilt fitting, courtesy of the .
Comment number 1.
At 24th Mar 2010, kleines c wrote:Maev Kennedy, writing in today's 'Guardian', comments that " ... the British Museum, which would once inevitably have been seen as the natural home for a find of international importance, gave its blessing and practical support to the campaign."
So the public mood is that regional treasures should, in future, stay in the regions they come from, and it is a mood which the British Museum, and the UK government, promote. There must be votes in the Staffordshire Hoard, Paul? It is possible that having told his history of the world in 100 objects, Neil MacGregor will then preside over the return of the British Museum's world collections to the rest of the world.
It is interesting that Mark Damazer's former ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio boss, Dame Jenny Abramsky, now chair of the NHMF, said: "The Staffordshire hoard is an extraordinary heritage treasure. It is exactly the sort of thing the National Heritage Memorial Fund was set up to save, stepping in as the 'fund of last resort' when our national heritage is at risk, as a fitting memorial to those who have given their lives in the service of our nation. We're delighted, in our 30th anniversary year, to be able to make sure it stays just where it belongs, providing rare insights into one of the more mysterious periods of our history."
Of course, there is an argument to say that the Staffordshire hoard should be displayed alongside the Sutton Hoo ship burial and other treasures of Anglo-Saxon England, not to mention comparable treasures from the 'Celtic' world and other parts of Europe.
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is in much the same boat as the British Museum? It cannot do everything.
;)
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