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Extraordinary closures

Please note that the museum will be closed as detailed below:

Mummy on the move!
The Egyptian gallery will be closed from the 28 April. The Mummy will reappear when the new Ancient Civilisations gallery opens on the 8 June

Saturday 24 November
The Museum and Library will be closed for the RIC Members Only day.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Address to the RIC's 2009 AGM by Jane Marley, Curator of Archaeology and World Cultures

We are celebrating the imminent publication of Ancient and Early Medieval Coins from Cornwall &Scilly as a special publication of the Royal Numismatic Society. Britain, unlike Europe, does not have a tradition of publishing regional numismatic corpora to agreed national standards. So far, only the Roman coins from North-West England and Wales have been published in detail. So this is a very special volume and worthy of celebration at this AGM.

The author, Roger Penhallurick, was the late Senior Curator of the Royal Institution of Cornwall. From a Cornish family, returned from Wales, Roger truly 'gathered up the fragments that are left, that nothing be lost', the mottow of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies.

He joined the RIC in 1964 with a degree in geology and art college training and was Curator of Natural Sciences, coins and medals, the photographic collection and most of the archaeology collection. He was known for his helpfulness to everybody. As well as his curatorial duties he researched and published Birds of the Cornish Coaast, A Checklist of the Birds of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Tin in Antiquity, The BIrds of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Turtles of Cornwall, the Isles of Scilly and Devonshire and The Butterflies of Cornwall and Scilly.

To quote Professor Charles Thomas - "Roger's models were the giants of Cornwall's antiquity - William Borlase, Thomas Tonkin and Rashleigh, the great nineteenth century naturalists. Like them, Roger's interests had no limits. The difference was one of period and opportunity. As a natural draughtsman, an eagle-eyed observer in the field, a profoundly able researcher in any topic to which he chose to turn, he could follow this enviable range of subjects in a twentieth century manner."

Roger has been described as "one of Cornwall's greatest scholars and Curator Extraordinary". His Tin in Antiquity alone would have made anyone's reputation. Roger practised during a 'Golden Age' for museum curators. Unlike today's staff on short-term contracts, Roger had a 'job for life' and the status, in his role, to follow his own interests - though I am sure much of the research was done in his own time. There were no computers with which to catalogue the collection, as at the start of my career. The seemingly 'all knowing' Keeper created hand written registers and catalogue index cards to assist the answering of enquiries. Today, short-term contracts mean that, instead of building up  the level of knowledge required to select, let alone undertake, a major topic of research, curators are forced to change job and move on. Perhaps in future, the wheel will turn full circle and museums will be given adequate, long-term funding to support Curators' research.

But getting back to the coin corpus, Roger's skills with numismatics were legendary. Charles Thomas once showed him a worn, bronze coin he had excavated and that he assumed, indeed wanted, to be Roman. 'Funny sort of emporer', he commented, 'Better luck next time. It's a Charles II farthing'.

Roger Penhallurick had been working on his coin corpus for many years and completed it in 2000 before his untimely death in 2004. The corpus is a true testament to his enthusiasm, commitment and awareness of the importance of coin finds to the archaeology and history of Cornwall.

In 2005, the Publications Committee asked me to be responsible for seeing the volume through to publication. Dr. Peter Guest from the School of History & Archaeology at Cardiff University was selected as the editor to carry out his own recommendations to bring the publication to current numismatic standards. Transforming the original manuscript into the current form was both a simple and complicated task. The simple part involved updating the corpus. Several local and national organisations were approached for information relating to recent coin finds from Cornwall and Scilly. Details of additional finds were sent by Anna Tyacke and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, the British Museum's Department of Coins and Medals, the Isles of Scilly Museum, Penlee House Museum and Gallery and Henrietta Quinnell kindly checked and updated the entries for Trethurgy and Trevelgue Head.

We are grateful to all of the above for taking the time to make this corpus as up-to-date and accurate as possible.

The original corpus was organised along chronological lines ('Greek', 'Republican Coins', 'Imperial Coins', etc). This had the effect of separating coins from the same assemblage into different parts of the volume. It was agreed at an early stage in the editing process that the corpus and accompanying text should be rearranged so that assemblages would be presented together in their entirety to make the publication more useful to its intended audience.

The work of reorganising the manuscript was undertaken by Dr. Nick Wells of Cardiff University. This task proved to be rather more complicated than initially envisaged though the Editors feel that the end result is worth the effort. Roger Penhallurick's discussion of the coins from Cornwall and Scilly has been brought together into the Introduction Chapter.

I find the introduction is a fascinating read:

Did you know that barter for goods and services rather than coinage was used in Cornwall right up until about the early 14th century when market towns were established?

Did you know that in the 5th century AD, the Emporer Honorius, who ruled in Ravenna, is said to have been alarmed by the loss of Rome to the barbarians. This was only until he realised that it was not the death of a favorite chicken called Roma but only the loss of the empore's western capital?

Did you know that in 1996, a 1st century BC Greek coin and other finds were planted by an American team called Global Research. This was so that innocent members of the group would not leave Cornwall without significant finds to make the cost of their trip worthwhile? This came to light because a woman living at Carnmenellis became suspicious when a Byzantine pottery lamp was found down a well she knew had been cleared of debris not long before. She insisted the finds were brought to the museum for closer inspection.

The corpora of coin finds from Cornwall and Scilly are now arranged alphabetically by find name. Again, many of the listings are a fascinating read and, like the introduction, cover many interesting facts and stories way beyond the confines of numismatics.

Dr. Wells Also produced four indexes that present the coin find-spots in different arrangements to facilitate searching the corpus for specific finds or coins. The distribution maps at the end of the volume were produced using georeferenced base maps supplied by Bryn Tapper Historic Environment Service, Cornwall Council.

A work of this scale and ambiition would not have been possible without the assistance of many people in Cornwall and we would like to thank:

Professor Charles Thomas Christine Edwards of the RIC for their supprt.

Oliver Padel and Chris Bond who were generous with their time and helped with details of the distinctiveness of Cornish place and parish names.

We have had assistance from numismatists Dr Harold Mattingly and Dr Richard Reece. Our thanks to them.

The RIC has provided support for editing and printing. We thank the Cornwall Archaeological Society for a generous grant.

Members of the RIC, the Royal Numismatic Society and Cornwall Archaeological Society will receive a 25% discount on the 312 page volume which will be distributed by Spink in 2010.

The volume is currently with the Editor of the Royal Numismatic Society, Richard Ashton, who is working on the final touches before it is printed.

Finally we wish to thank Pat Penhallurick for entrusting with us the task of bringing her late husband's great numismatic work to the attention of an admiring and appreciative wider world.