Women's History Month is deeply rooted in the suffrage movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  To highlight the need for equality, it was vital to show the contributions that women had made throughout history and continued to make in current times.  In celebration of Women's History Month, and in conjunction with Treasures: Adventures in Archaeology, we take a look at some of the women who helped shape the discipline of archaeology.

Gertrude Bell was born in County Durham in 1868.  She was educated at home and went on the attend Oxford University where she earned a degree in history.  During a trip to Iran, she fell in love with the history and culture of the Middle East.  Becoming fluent in Arabic and Persian, she travelled extensively throughout the region, many times to places few Europeans had ever been.  During her trips, she would also carry out archaeological surveys of ruins and published several books.  Because of her unparalleled knowledge of the Middle East, when the First World War began she took a job with British Intelligence in the Arab Bureau in Cairo.  While there she worked with fellow adventurer and archaeologist T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia).  In the post war years Bell became deeply involved in the formation of Iraq and Jordan as independent nations.  She had a close relationship with King Faisal of Iraq and Syria and in 1922 the new government appointed her Director of Antiquities.  In this role, Bell became a passionate supporter of artefacts remaining in their original countries, not in European collections, and to combat this she wrote the Laws of Excavation, which gave protection to archaeological sites in Iraq, and established the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad.   Recently a movie, Queen of the Desert, was made of Bell’s life starring Nicole Kidman. 

Tessa (Verney) Wheeler was born in Johannesburg in 1893.  The family relocated to England and Tessa read history at University College London.  While there she met her future husband, Mortimer Wheeler, who would become a preeminent archaeologist.  After graduating, Tessa move to Cardiff where her husband had taken up the position of Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales.  During their time there, Tessa and Mortimer carried out extensive excavations at Roman sites such as Segontium (Caernarfon) and Y Gaer (Brecon).  Just as they were preparing to begin excavating at Caerleon, Mortimer was appointed Keeper at the London Museum.  Instead of abandoning the project, Tessa took over the excavation.  Early in her career she was often overshadowed by her husband but in later life she was recognised for her fieldwork and the contributions she made to the ‘Wheeler team’.      

Turkish archaeologist Halet Çambel was a woman of many talents.  Born in Berlin in 1916, she had taken up fencing as a child and became the first Muslim woman to compete in the Olympics as part of the 1936 Turkish fencing team.  She famously declined an invitation to meet Adolph Hitler.  She then attended the Sorbonne in Paris where she read archaeology and the languages of Hittite, Assyrian and Hebrew.  She spent most of her career excavating in Turkey and spent over 50 years working at Karatepe, a Hittite stronghold.  She created the department of Prehistoric Archaeology at Istanbul University and in 2004 was awarded the Prince Claus Award, which is presented to those “whose cultural actions have a positive impact on the development of their societies.”    

A person doesn’t have to be a trained expert to have an impact on archaeology.  Take for example, Edith Pretty.  Born in 1883, Edith’s family saw the value in education, especially education via travel.  Throughout her many travels, she was able to see archaeological excavations in progress.  Her father also had an interest in archaeology and was given permission to excavate a Cistercian Abbey near their home in Cheshire.  Having inherited money, she bought land in Suffolk and moved there with her husband.  The property held several burial mounds which did not appear to have been excavated.  Edith and her husband often wondered what may lie beneath the mounds but Edith wanted any excavations to be done using the most up to date scientific methods.  In 1937, she contacted the Ipswich Museum and requested the mounds be excavated.  Two years later, the largest of the mounds produced one of the most important archaeological finds, the Sutton Hoo burial.  She gifted the finds to the British Museum where they are on display.   

These are but a few of the women who have contributed to archaeology.  For more information, please visit http://trowelblazers.com/

A number of months ago, I told you that we are currently busy preparing objects for our new galleries.  The most recent one to land on our work table is a Memorial sampler.  It has an embroidered inscription, carried out in cross-stitch using silk thread, which reads: ‘In loving memory of / Elizabeth Morgan, / formerly of Llanishan / who died Dec 6^th 1885 / Aged 30 years / and was interred at / Glyn-Taff Cemetery / A Ray of light from God’s own light - / She beamed and made of life the best / She touched the earth and made it bright / She blest us all and went to rest.’

The sampler was donated by the great-grand daughter of Elizabeth Morgan, T. A. Bennett, from Pen-y-Graig, Rhondda. 

The interesting thing about this sampler is that the ground is not textile but is made from card punched through with a gridwork of holes, through which the embroidery is worked.  As it is made from both textile and paper elements this has given us an opportunity to tackle its conservation as a cross-disciplinary project; drawing on our respective expertise in both textile and paper conservation.

Looking at the object in its frame, the senior conservator archives and I could already see that the sampler had been badly mounted in the past, having been adhered directly to a rigid card backing.  This has been partly responsible for causing splits in the card ground as the unevenly applied adhesive restricted its natural expansion and contraction through changes in environmental humidity levels.  Our challenge here will be to devise a method of removing the embroidery from this unsuccessful backing and to come up with a new method of stabilising and mounting it, so that it can be displayed safely.  As we get stuck into the project, we shall give you updates on how the work is progressing.

9 Mawrth 1946: Ir Bala hefo’r bus 12.30. Prynu shuttle o nodwyddau i Es ir machine wnio.

Yn ei dyddiadur heddiw, mae Kate Rowlands yn sôn ei bod wedi prynu nodwyddau ar gyfer peiriant gwnïo ei merch, Elsie. Yn ystod y 1940au, roedd medr gyda'r nodwydd a'r peiriant gwnïo yn fantais fawr i fenywod Cymru. Dyma ddegawd o ddogni ac ailgylchu, trwsio a phwytho.

Dogni dillad (1941 - 1949)

Yn dilyn cyflwyno dogni ar fwyd yn 1940, daeth dogni dillad i rym ym Mehefin 1941. Roedd sawl rheswm tu ôl i’r penderfyniad, ond y prif nod oedd lleihau’r galw am ddeunyddiau crai ac ailgyfeirio llafur at waith rhyfel. Erbyn 1941, roedd mewnforio cynnyrch o’r cyfandir yn amhosibl. Ar ben hyn, roedd y ffatrïoedd hynny a fyddai, fel rheol, wedi cynhyrchu brethyn a gwisgoedd parod yn ceisio ymdopi â’r galw newydd am lifrai milwrol. O ganlyniad, rhoddwyd llyfr dogni dillad i bob unigolyn. I brynu dilledyn, rhaid oedd talu gyda chyfuniad o arian parod a thocynnau o’r llyfr.

Roedd pob unigolyn yn cael cwota o docynnau i’w gwario yn flynyddol, gyda phob tocyn yn gyfwerth â hyn a hyn o bwyntiau. Pe bai angen ffrog newydd ar Kate Rowlands, byddai wedi gorfod ildio un-ar-ddeg tocyn. Crys newydd i Emrys? Wyth tocyn. Pâr o ’sgidiau i Dwa? Saith tocyn. Ar ddechrau’r cynllun, roedd pob unigolyn yn derbyn 66 o bwyntiau bob blwyddyn, ond wrth i’r Rhyfel fynd yn ei flaen, bu’n rhaid gostwng y cwota. Roedd y sefyllfa ar ei waethaf rhwng 1 Medi 1945 a 30 Ebrill 1946 – dim ond 24 tocyn oedd ar gael y pryd hynny.

Make do and Mend

Yng ngwyneb y prinderau hyn, cyhoeddodd y Bwrdd Masnach lyfryn bychan o'r enw Make do and Mend er mwyn annog menywod Prydain i fod yn ddyfeisgar a chreadigol â'u dillad. I gyd-fynd â'r ymgyrch, lluniwyd cymeriad o'r enw 'Mrs Sew and Sew' i hyrwyddo'r neges mewn cylchgronau a phapurau newydd. Sefydlwyd dosbarthiadau gwnïo mewn neuaddau bentref ac ysgolion ledled y wlad i gynorthwyo menywod ar bob agwedd o fywyd yn y cartref.

Mae sawl enghraifft yng nghasgliad tecstiliau'r Amgueddfa o waith llaw'r cyfnod hwn. Un o fy ffefrynnau i yw'r gorchudd clustog a welir yma a wnaed drwy ailgylchu hen sach ac edafedd lliw.

While I enjoy going to the Youth Forum very much, I have to say a once-in-a-lifetime experience was not what I was expecting when I turned up last week. But there we were, in the art conservation room, a few feet away from an original Van Gogh, out of its frame on the next table, having just come back from being loaned to an American museum. I could have actually touched it (and I was quite tempted, though of course I didn’t).

Now, I’m not exactly an art aficionado, as you can properly tell by the way I haven’t included the name of the painting because I don’t know it, but I have to say it was pretty amazing. 

However, the focus of the meeting was actually the imposing The Welsh at Mametz Wood by war artist Christopher Williams, which is going to be part of a new exhibition focusing on the First World War battle at Mametz in a few months time.

This is a battle where hundreds of men from the Welsh Division were killed in July 1916, and thousands more were injured, something that the painting certainly doesn’t shy away from. It’s big, bloody, and quite brutal. While war sketches of poppies blooming among the trenches and beleaguered soldiers limping through mud evoke the tragedy of the slaughter that took place, they arguably don’t capture the fighting itself, but the aftermath, the few moments of calm in a four-year storm.

Christopher Williams (1873-1934), Cyrch yr Adran Gymreig yng Nghoed Mametz,1916 © Amgueddfa Cymru

Williams’ painting does the opposite. The desperate struggle of the hand-to-hand slaughter was immediately obvious. It felt almost claustrophobic, the way the soldiers were almost piling on top of each other, climbing over their fallen comrades to try and take out the machine gunner. It was certainly a world away, as we discussed, from the posters bearing Lord Kitchener encouraging young men to enlist. We also talked about the way the painting is quite beautifully composed, almost in a Renaissance style.

It was hard to look at, but at the same time it was something you wanted to look at. 

After this, we went to the archives to look at some sketches made by Williams and other artists while at the trenches. I was about to get goosebumps for the second time that evening - one of them still had mud from the trenches staining the edges!

In any other context, 100-year-old mud probably wouldn’t have been very exciting, but this mud is so strongly linked in people’s minds with images of the First World War.

Think of the trenches, and you think of mud. People slept, ate and died surrounded by this mud; it seems to be inextricably bound up with the nightmare of having to live and fight in that environment, and made looking at the sketches even more powerful.

Another document we looked at was a sort of manual given to recruits of the Royal Welsh Division, containing poems, stories and pictures that the soldiers would have submitted themselves. It was touching to see one of the ways they would have injected moments of humour into their lives as soldiers, and also their own perspectives on their experiences. All in all, I’m really looking forward to seeing how this exhibition comes together, and learning more about Mametz, a part of the war I hadn’t even heard of until a couple of weeks ago. 

Holly Morgan Davies, 

National Museum Cardiff Youth Forum

St Fagans: National History Museum in the past 60 years has played an important role in collecting and recording the experiences of women in Wales. The Archive collections at St Fagans reflects the work done by several members of research staff to document the many facets that contributed to the lives of past generations of women in Wales, and continues to document their experiences. This blog focuses particularly on the work of one woman researcher, namely S. Minwel Tibbott, and her legacy, and on International Women’s Day looks at her invaluable contribution to document the lives of her fellow sisters in Wales.

S. Minwel Tibbott began working in St Fagans in the early 1960’s and later became Assistant Keeper. Her research work mainly focused on women’s everyday domestic lives collected via oral testimony, photography and film, and was set against a post Second World War Wales that was rapidly transforming, but for a number of women, life had stayed relatively unchanged for generations. Domestic appliances and labour saving devices were emerging and available, but out of the economic reach of many Welsh women at this time, however, as the 1960’s progressed and disposable income more commonplace this began to change.  Many of the images shown here therefore capture domestic rituals that may have been lost had it not been for the foresight of S. Minwel Tibbott to record them. St Fagans continues to record and document the lives of women in Wales via the #Creu Hanes #Making History project. Recent donations have included an archive collection relating to one Welsh woman’s experience at Greenham Common for example.