A 6 month catch up…

Apologies this blog has been on hiatus for a while now. My PhD took over slightly and I rarely found the motivation to write a new post. It’s a shame because I’ve done some cool things since last September and haven’t shared them.

So what have I been up to since September? Well here’s a  quick run through of of the last 6 months or so.

The main thing was finishing my data collection for my PhD. The last collection to access was at Cambridge University, held by the Duckworth laboratory. It was a great facility and the collections manager was lovely. One of the other collections I visited, just before Christmas 2017 was held by the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh – so of course I had to spend a few days in this amazing old city! The stores for the museum were off site in a large warehouse but I highly recommend going to the museum if you’re ever in the city. It’s an incredible space with some amazing artifacts.

Victoria Street

Natinal Museum of Scotland

Old Calton burial ground

Edinburgh Castle

Once the data had all been collected it was time to start analysing and producing some results! I’m not going to lie this was really tough at times and I had to get my head around various statistics – something I hadn’t really thought I’d be doing again after I’d completed my undergrad. But I did it and I’m pretty happy with the results! I’ll tell you about them some point in the future, once I’ve presented them and they’re fully finished. Whilst creating the results I produced some rough drafts of my chapters, which I’m now working on, re-writing and editing in preparation for my thesis. Some days are pretty tough (and dull!) but it’s amazing to fell like I’m moving toward the end of this massive piece of work. I can firmly say that I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel .

So what else has been going on? Well there was the second SSSB conference, bringing together academics, museum staff and students who study death, anatomy and the the human skeleton. It was another successful conference with a variety of talks and projects from people across the country. Unfortunately I couldn’t be as involved as last year but I definitely enjoyed myself and met some really interesting people. If you’re interested I believe there’s now a podcast discussing themes around skeletons, stories and social bodies so check it out!

After this conference I went to America for my first big international conference : AAPA, the American association of physical anthropologists. It was a great experience meeting lots of new people presenting on all areas of physical anthropology. I also presented some of my work! It was well received and I got some supportive feedback, so that was lovely! It also gave me the opportunity to explore a place I had never been before : Austin, Texas. It’s a very cool city, very green with the Colorado river running through the centre. Probably the best part of seeing thousands of bats leave their roost under a nearby bridge to go and fed. It was an incredible sight – I’ve definitely never seen that many bats in once place and probably will never do again! I also took the opportunity to spend a few days in New York, which was pretty cool. I met my boyfriend there after the conference and spend a couple of days doing the tourist thing. America was an incredible experience. I got to see some great research and some amazing sites!

Stroll along the Colorado River

Austin, Texas

Austin bats

Times Square

New York City

Empire State Building

Statue of Liberty

A few days after getting back from the US I attended a workshop on archives. This was organised through the CDP (collaborative doctoral partnership who awarded my PhD) and gave me the chance to meet some fellow CDP students. Not only, that but it also gave me the chance to share my experiences of working in archaeological archives and what researchers need to expect when working with collections. I think it was helpful, especially the first year students who may have not been into a collection yet. It was a good workshop and I even met the assistant curator of medicine at the Science Museum. These events are always good for networking!

After workshop I updated my museum access guides to include one for museum staff about what information may be useful to provide researchers who are entering their collections. Hopefully it helps!

So that’s about it. What I’ve been doing over the last 6+ months. Writing it all down actually shows how many different things I’ve been able to do! Definitely one of the best things of doing a PhD – the chance to experience a variety of things and to meet lots of interesting, new people.

Until next time!

 

 

My British Osteological Database – An Update

Finding research material is major component for any PhD. This can often mean extensive online searchers, emails to curators and searching through journal articles for relevant or useful material.

From my own experiences (where I needed large samples of human molars from a range of archaeological periods) this is not always an easy thing to do. A while back I decided to produce a crude database about some of the human remains collections I came across during my search. Recently, I decided to update this to make it more user friendly and to add a couple more sites.

You can find a downloadable excel file here with site names, dates and basic collection information.

Enjoy!

PS. If there are any more collections that you know of (and their information can be shared publicly) please get in touch!

Catching a Break

Graffiti from the Streets of Barcelona

Check this out – a second blog post in one month, that hasn’t happened for a while!

Since my last post I’ve been away to Barcelona, had a quick trip to Bournemouth University, been on hockey tour, attended a workshop on object handling and did my first bit of teaching to children! And in between doing the usual PhD work – so I’ve been busy!

First off Barcelona. It was beautiful. A lovely city with amazing architecture, history and somewhere I intend to visit again. My boyfriend and I went to celebrate his birthday and used it as a chance to get a break away from our work and spend some time with each other. It was absolutely lovely and perfect. We walked a lot but it was worth it to see so much of the city (plus it gave us the excuse to sit in many bars to have a rest and a drink!). We visited the typical tourist spots including La Rambla, Sagrada Familia and the Cathedral. Plus we wondered through the winding streets of the Gothic Quarter. It was incredible, especially Sagrada Familia. I honestly haven’t been in a building that was quite so spectacular! The design and architecture were stunning and the colours created by the stained glass windows were magnificent. I’m not a religious or particularly spiritual person but this was an awe-inspiring place! A must see if you are ever in Barcelona! It was a lovely few days, getting away and getting some head space – and of course the food was incredible! But it definitely reminded me that it’s important to take time for yourself and switch off from daily work life.

So what else? Oh yeah a brief to Bournemouth University to look at some Bronze Age juveniles. There were only a few individuals in their collection, but enough to complete my sample for this time period! This makes me very happy as it’s something tangible that I can tick off as ‘done’. It definitely helps towards the feeling of moving forward and making progress. Now to start looking at the data!

A good week of PhD work the occurred ending with a weekend away on hockey tour! Those who are not familiar with this is a weekend of playing social hockey (i.e. not that serious!) and meeting different players and clubs. It’s a great way to meet other people and to get to know the players on your team better. It was the first tour I’ve been on with Guildford hockey club and was a good laugh! I even saw a friend from Uni which was a lovely surprise. I bump into him randomly now and then so it was great having a catch up – the world of hockey can be a small place!

Moving to this week I’ve tried some new things! The first was attending a CDP (Collaborative Doctoral Partnership – my PhD funding scheme) workshop on object handling. This included going to the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum) in London to discuss how people (including other CDP students and V&A staff) learn from objects within a collection. Part of the day included short presentations by CDP students about objects or collections involved in their research. Originally, I had not intended to go to the workshop but at the training days the other week I met the student organisers who asked me to present. I agreed and instead of discussing some of the skeletal collections or a particular object I took a different route – to discuss how attitudes towards excavation and reconstruction of human skulls has changed over time. In summary, during my PhD data collection, I came across particular collections (excavated during the late 1800s/early 1900s) that only consisted of skulls – almost all of which had been reconstructed. These reconstructions were made using troublesome materials, such as clay, metal and heavy glues, causing damage to the bones and preventing future research. This of course does not happen today. Guidelines produced by the British Museum and Department of Culture, Media and Sport now recommend excavation and conservation practices and state that conservation/reconstruction should only take place when necessary and by a trained professionals. It is interesting to consider how objects (including human remains) can be used to inform us just of past individuals or populations but also about the collectors and attitudes of the time. This was reflected and considered in talks by other students, as well as other common themes spanning different types of collections and objects. It was a very interesting session and a great chance to meet new people outside the world or bio-archaeaology! It was also great to gain more insight into attitudes of museums and how they look at objects. hopefully there will be more of these sessions in the future!

Finally, this week I had my first experience of teaching children. Yesterday I helped a friend who does some outreach within Southampton University. This included teaching classes 10 year-olds a little about archaeology and burials. Basically, the idea to get the kids to put together a small model of a skeleton then bury it with objects that may tell us about that person. It was quite fun and certainly a new experience for me! I’m glad that I get the chance to do some teaching, there’s a few more coming up next month so we’ll see how I get on then!

So over the last 3 weeks I’ve been quite busy. It’s all good though and I like the variety – it stops me getting stuck or bored!

Oops I Did it Again…

I’ve left it a while since writing a blog post! Sorry the PhD took over my life for a while there (a bit more than usual!).

So what have I been doing? Well there has been some more data collecting, more writing, more hockey and the upgrade. For those of you who don’t know about the PhD process some universities conduct upgrades during the PhD. This is an examination type meeting where a couple of lecturers (most likely within the same department as you) question the PhD student on a piece of written work and assess whether they a) have a project that can stand and process onto a PhD and 2) that the student knows what they are doing?!

To be honest mine feels like a bit of a blur and it is quite an odd experience! However, I came through it and received some great advice that I will be using to refine, restructure and focus my project. I’m hoping that I’ll continue my PhD with a slightly new perspective and with the knowledge that it is going well (although I will have to remind my self that constantly. It’s the nature of the beast!).

Please note that for each university this process is different and has different requirements. When I talk about my upgrade it only relates to my experience. I highly recommend attending any training events relating to the upgrade and/or talk to your supervisors and fellow students who have gone through it. I was told that this is to help prepare you for the final viva so it is going to be tough – but worth it in the end! 

So what else have I been doing? Well more data collection for a start. I’ve visited a couple more museums including Cheltenham Museum and a small collection held by the University of Bristol Spelaeologial Society (which also hosts the brilliant cave Gazetteers website that I mention on my British Osteologial Collections page). But I guess the one I would like to brag about is the Natural History Museum! Yup I was lucky enough to carry out a weeks data collection at the NHM London.

The NHM is one of my favourite museums, I went there a number of times and now that I live near London I can go as often as I like. But it was such a great opportunity to go and use some of their collection in my research. The lovely Curatorial Assistant was on hand to help with any questions and queries and it was great getting to chat to her. I hope to see her again at BABAO 2017 where we both hope to present a poster. It was a privilege to work there and can even say that I met the curator of the human remains collections (who was also our first key note speaker at our SSSB conference – see previous post). In addition, as part of the agreement to collect data I carried out some basic osteological curation work on the specimens I examined by completing an inventory sheet of the remains. It may sound like a small thing but it will allow for easier and more efficient inventorying and assessment for future researches and curators – and hey every little helps!

What else is there…Oh yeah I’ve just come off from two excellent training days organised by the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP), who fund my PhD. These two days talked about life after the PhD, getting and applying for funding grants and things to consider when applying for jobs. Even though I am only in my 2nd year to was a great thing to attend. It means I can start thinking about what I want to do now, and start preparing my CV, skills and research so I can look for work/funding efficiently and productively when the time comes. It was also great to meet some of the other CDP students, it’s always nice to hear about their experiences and learn about their research. Through this I was asked if I would like to do a small presentation about object handling at another CDP event coming up in a few weeks (check out those networking skills lol!). They haven’t got anyone talking about human remains so I think I will take them up on their offer. Plus it will give me another chance to practice my presentation skills! I’ll report back in a few weeks to let you know how it went!

Anyway, I hope this gives you a little idea of what I’ve been up to. Next week I’m away in Barcelona (it’s the boyfriend’s birthday treat) and will come back refreshed and relaxed ready to hit the ground running with the PhD. Until then…adios!

 

A busy few weeks …

Well hasn’t March flown by?! It feels like ages ago when I last updated my blog, but it isn’t really but in the last 2 weeks so much has happen. I have been to two more institutions to see their collections and the conference I was helping to organize took place. It’s been a great – but very very busy – couple of weeks!

So a couple of weeks ago I headed up to the University of Bradford to look at an Iron Age collection they have in their Biological Anthropology Research Centre. I was there for the whole week as it was a large collection but it was very productive. Whilst I was there I was told that there was also a Bronze Age collection and as I was able to get through the Iron Age sample quite quickly I had time to look at the Bronze Age stuff as well. So I got two collections for the price of one!

As well as the great collections at Bradford I have to talk about the amazing facilities they have there. I gather that a few years ago the Archaeology department moved buildings and were provided with brand new lab spaces, and I must say they are wonderful! They are spacious, well organized and very modern. It made collecting my data much easier. I hope that the Bradford students realize how lucky they are!

Some of the facilities at University of Bradford. Image from twicopy.org/en/BradToothFairy

Oh and a bonus thing that happened whilst I was in Bradford. I met Prof. Keith Manchester. For those who don’t know much about bioarchaeology /osteology Keith Manchester is quite big in paleopathology – my key textbook I used during my undergraduate degree to learn about the subject was co-authored by him. He was so lovely and was kind enough to show me around some of the other lab and teaching spaces in the department. It was so nice meeting him and not at all scary!

So my week was in Bradford was over. As I said it was a great week and I got a lot done, but my travels were not over. The following week I was in Sheffield visiting the museum’s collection. Before getting onto that, however, just a quick side note. I’ve probably mentioned before that I play hockey (field not ice!) and this year my team has been going for promotion. Now this weekend (between my two trips) we had seen very important game – of we won or drew then we were guaranteed first play in the league a promotion. So there was quite a bit of pressure and I was very nervous before the game, but we played really well and won! We were so happy (of course!), we had confirmed our place at the top! It was amazing and I so pleased and proud of the team. We’ve had a couple of ups and downs but we got there in the end. And a special thanks must go out to our coach Chris. If you’re interested you can find the match report for the game here.

After a good week in Bradford and an amazing hockey game I was up in Sheffield visiting the museum’s stores. I had another successful week and saw many Bronze Age remains, and a few Neolithic. One thing that was annoying was the condition of some of the remains. Some of the skulls had been reconstructed using glue and plaster making them heavy and a few had their jaws glued together so I couldn’t examine their teeth. Now I must stress that this is due to a result of old collectors back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and not the museum. Collectors in the past did not seem to have that much interest in studying the remains but just collected them. For this reason many of these skeletal collections only possess the skulls, which is annoying for modern day researchers. I’m sure that there’s a project in there examining the history of collecting and the reason behind these practices but that’s for someone else! Regardless of these specimens there were plenty of others that were of use to my project and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Sheffield, and the members of staff were brilliant.

Before moving on I must give a special thanks to Leigh Ann, the collection assistant, who was really helpful and great to talk to. Leigh Ann knew so much about the various collections held by the museum and I learnt a lot. It’s also a bonus that she recommended some great podcasts to listen to! Hopefully we’ll bump into one another again, maybe at the Society of Museum Archaeologists (SMA) later this year.Leigh-Ann and the other staff members were great, I highly recommend visiting Sheffield Museum and that you use their collections if you are a researcher!

After all of the traveling and data collection the weekend of March 24th offered something else that was very exciting –  the SSSB Conference! I have mentioned this in previous posts but SSSB is an inter-disciplinary conference exploring death, anatomy, attitudes to the body, mortuary practices and more, with SSSB standing for Skeletons, Stories and Social Bodies. I am committee member for this and I can’t believe how quickly it came round but here it was!

What can I say? I think that it was a great success! We had a wide range of speakers discussing everything from mortuary practices seen in archaeology to new approaches to viewing the remains of Pompeii to how should be approach medical students about the donated bodies. You can see a full list of abstracts of the papers and posters presented here to understand the complete variety of work. We also two great Keynotes by Dr Heather Bonney and Prof. Caroline Wilkinson discussing the history of collecting and the history and use of facial reconstruction. I even ran a workshop with another PhD student  introducing delegates to bioarchaeology and how to age, sex and identify pathology on human skeletal remains. All in all it was a great conference and I met so many interesting and wonderful people. If you are interested search for #SSSB2017 on twitter or check our twitter page @sssbconf. 

Over I got the impression that most people enjoyed it and found that it was quite different to other conferences they had been to. Hopefully, the delegates were introduced to new topics, ideas and perspectives that may provide new considerations for their own work. There already been talk of SSSB 2018 so fingers crossed that goes ahead and we can make the conference even better for next year!

Now I have a day of rest, with the in-laws visiting, then tomorrow it’s back to work!

 

Up to Manchester!

Butterfly mobile taken during my visit to Manchester Museum

This last month I’ve been so busy with writing and sorting out my data that I haven’t had a chance to do anything with my blog. In the last week, however, I’ve visited two more museums to look at some Neolithic and Bronze Age teeth.

A few days ago I took my first trip up to Manchester. I’ve never been to this part of the country but needed to go and visit Lancaster Maritime Museum and Manchester Museum. Both museums were lovely but I only really got a chance to have a look around Manchester Museum. It reminded me of a small Natural History Museum as it had quite a lot of animal specimens – including a lot of skulls! I took plenty of pictures of these and I might write some posts about them, like my old ‘skull of the month‘ posts.

It was really nice to go up north for a bit. I traveled up with my boyfriend, and it was lovely having the company! We also stayed with some friends who I haven’t seen for a couple of years. It was so nice seeing them! We even talked about going on holiday to the Lakes one day – something I’m very keen to do. Oh and they also had very cute cat called Arthur. He was such a sweetie and playing with him made me want one of my own. Maybe one day.

In other news the conference is going really well. I haven’t talked about it for a while but remember that I’m on the committee for a conference called Skeletons, Stories and Social Bodies? Well that’s happening at the end of this month. I can’t believe it’s coming up so soon, but everything is coming together and we have lots of people registered. I think it’s going to be really good, especially for a brand new conference! It’s really exciting and I’m really pleased to be a part of it. But before then I have two more collections to visit, and quite a bit of data analysis and write up to finish!

Where has Christmas gone?!

A shot of London from Waterloo Bridge, taken on my way home from the Hunterian Museum.

My last blog post was before Christmas so that’s nearly a month ago now. How time flies when you’ve got work to do! I would say my new years resolution would be to write more blog posts, but I’m not sure if I’ll have the time. As well my PhD work, the conference I’m a committee member for is getting ever closer! Maybe after March (and the conference) I’ll have some more time. I really want to expand these blog posts to more than ‘what I’ve been up to’ – maybe I’ll have the time soon!

Ah, Christmas feels so long ago now, but it was lovely. I managed to have a week off to see family, catch up with some old friends and generally chill out for a bit. It was great – even with a horrible cough and cold! But a week goes pretty fast when you’re having fun and I was soon home again and back carrying on with the PhD.

The PhD stuff is going well, I’ve booked to go and visit some new museums (that have Neolithic remains hooray!) and started going down to visit the Dorset County Museum. It’s pretty far to go but they have some really useful collections. Plus their stores are in a church, which is quite interesting if a little cold! I’ve said before that I really enjoy going to these museums as I get to meet new people. This week that included Claire Randall a zoo- and osteo-  archeologist. We had a lovely chat and it was great finding out about her work. This week I’ve also been brushing up on my statistics, which I have a love-hate relationship with! It can be a pain to get through but it’s so satisfying once you’ve done it and got it right!

Enough about the PhD work. The other cool thing I’m involved in at the moment is the Skeletons Stories and Social Bodies conference. I’ve talked about in many times (and you can find out even more by visiting our website) but it’s now getting quite close!  We’ve now had all of the abstracts in and produced a draft schedule. I am really looking forward to it as we have some great presentations covering a wide range of things! I know the speakers will be great but I also can’t wait to meet some of the delegates. There are quite a few people on social media who have been really supportive and enthusiastic about the conference and it would be great to finally put some names to faces! Not to long to wait now 😀

Finally, today I was back helping pack the collections at the Hunterian Museum. I think I asy this every time but I do enjoy working there. The people are great and I love the museum, but it also gives me some head space away from my PhD work. It’s so easy to become obsessed and constantly worried that I should be working that it’s nice to escape once a fortnight! So I’ll be back there in two weeks time, still packing away.

 

It’s Christmas! My last post for 2016

Sorry I’ve been a bit rubbish about posting recently, I’ve had quite a bit to do. But now it’s time to stop and relax for a little while as it’s Christmas!

Tomorrow I’m going to Southampton for one last day to volunteer at a conference that is currently being hosted by the archaeology department at Southampton university. This is for the TAG conference (Theoretical Archaeology Group) and its the first time I’ve been. There’s quite a bit on including a Christmas market selling books, jewellery, cards and lots of other nice things. There’s also a lot of talks, with multiple sessions running all at once. One of the sessions is for the conference I’m helping to organize, Skeletons, Stories & Social Bodies  and I’m really looking forward to hearing the presentations.

Speaking of SSSB it’s going well. The abstract deadline has now closed and we’ve had plenty of submissions, which means a great amount of talks to select from! We’ve also chosen the workshops, which are varied and sound very interesting. The key note speakers have also been confirmed and announced – and I’m very excited about that! We’ve got Heather Bonney from the Natural History Museum, London and Caroline Wilkinson from Face Lab, based at Liverpool John Moores University. It’s all coming together now and I can’t wait. The only deadline that is left is for art submissions for the exhibition, so if you have any art (or could recommend anyone!) that would fit within the conference give me a shout. I also would like to say thank you to David Mennear for advertising the conference on his blog ‘These Bones of Mine‘. It’s a great blog covering a range of topics in bioarchaeology, and I strongly recommend visiting!

So why haven’t I been around for a while? Well I’ve been collecting data, so traveling to Winchester for that, volunteering at the Royal College of Surgeons, playing hockey and finishing a draft for my upgrade, which will take place next year. Oh yeah and I also had to prepare a presentation for the TAG conference – my first proper conference! So I’ve been fairly busy but I feel like it’s all going well. But I’m not going to lie I’m very happy it’s Christmas and I can take a break!

I’m off to my mum’s in a few days, then up to the in-laws for Christmas Day. I’m very much looking forward to lots of nice food and drink, some well deserved rest and most importantly lots of family time. So Merry Christmas all, enjoy the holidays and see you in the New Year!

Return to Cardiff Museum

Sorry I didn’t post anything late week I was rather busy so it slipped my mind, so this post will talk about my last 2 weeks of work. This includes another trip to the stores of the Corinium Museum, volunteering at the Royal College of Surgeons, a trip to the Cotswold Archaeology office and another up to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.

My visit to the Corinium Museum stores was successful again. I got through another load of Anglo-Saxon skeletons for my data collection. It’s such a good collection and its going to be very useful for my PhD project as it includes lots of juvenile individuals. This makes me very happy! However, I’ve got quite a few more trips to make to their stores as it’s such a large collection.

The day after my trip to Cirencester I was back at the Royal College  of Surgeons volunteering in the museums department. It’s been a few weeks since  I’ve been there as the museum has been quite busy and haven’t been able to have me in. However, it was great to be back packing more skeletons into boxes ready for the move. Of course, it was also great to see the staff members again. I do enjoy working there!

So that was last week. I started this week by coming up to Kemble, which is near Cirencester. The purpose of this trip was to visit one of the office of Cotswold Archaeology, as they had a couple of Bronze Age and Iron Age skeletons. Whilst there I got to meet a couple of lovely people, including Sharon Clough who gave me some great information regarding some of the other collections I’m intending to use in my research. I also got to chat to Sharon about commercial archaeology units and learn a bit more about them. I’ve only really visited museums and universities so far, so it was a really good opportunity to learn about the commercial sector – a completely new area for me!

This week has ended with a trip but to the National Museum of Wales, in Cardiff. In my last visit I went through the prehistoric human remains in their collection. This time I was going back to the relevant specimens and taking measurements. I’ve now managed to get collection of Neolithic individuals recorded, plus a few Bronze Age remains, which is always good!

So another day, another lot of data collection completed. I think it’s all going well – I feel like I’ve got a lot done, but then I still have a load more to do! As a little fish called Dory once said ‘just keep swimming!’

A Night In An Old Operating Theatre!

The Old Operating Theatre. Image taken from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/england/london/articles/London-in-your-lunch-break-the-Old-Operating-Theatre/

This week has been a long one! I’m not sure why as it’s been pretty good and quite productive but it’s taken a while to get through. Maybe it’s because I’ve been travelling for my data collection again and I’m not used to driving  so much?! As well as my PhD work this week I went to a really cool talk about Bodysnatching in an old operating theatre – perfect for Halloween!

On Monday I was back at the stores of the Hampshire Cultural Trust to finish going through the various sites they have. I’m pretty pleased with  myself as I’ve managed to get through a lot of skeletons in a decent amount of time. There are two small sites to work through but as they’ll only take me half a day at most I will return another time. At some point in the future I will need to go to their other store to access a Romano-British population.

On Wednesday I was then back at the stores of Corinium Museum in Cirencester. Although it’s a bit of a journey to get there my mum lives about half an hour away so I went up the night before. This cuts my travel time down in the morning and I get the bonus of seeing my mum. I’m really lucky as I have a great relationship with Mum so it’s always lovely to go back home. Whilst at the Corinium stores I managed to get a decent amount of work done. However, the Anglo-Saxon collection  I’m looking at is quite big. This is good news as it’ll be a great source of data for my PhD but on the other hand it will take me some time to complete it. Unfortunately I can’t do a series of consecutive days at the stores as it is only staffed one day a week, but I then get to visit my mum quite a bit so it’s not all bad!

This weeks blog post ends with a trip to the Old Operating Theatre in London to see a lecture. The talk is called ‘Night of the Bodysnatcher’. The Old Operating Theatre is a museum located in the roof space of St. Thomas’s, Southwark just around the corner from London Bridge train station. This is the original site of St Thomas’s hospital and is one of the oldest surviving operating theatres. It is quite an odd place, to access it you have to climb a tight, spiral staircase that leads to a tiny museum displaying some of the instruments and medical equipment used in the past. Going through the museum and around a corner you find the old operating theatre, pictured in the image above. This is where we sat and listened to the talk, but it was strange to think that’s where dissections and operations took place many years ago.

The talk itself was very interesting, I do love learning about the history of surgery and the things surrounding it! This talk was, as the title suggests, about Bodysnatchers or otherwise known as Resurrection Men. These were individuals who took the bodies of the recent dead from their graves and sold them to surgeons, who then used them for dissections to learn about anatomy. It may have been quite a gross job to do, but it could be rather lucrative for a period in the 1700s as surgeons wanted bodies and would therefore pay!

A view of the museum at the Old Operating Theatre, and a replica beak mask.

There were lots of great facts and fascinating bits of information, for example, did you know that the body snatchers stripped the body of corpses of their clothes and possessions and placed them back in the grave? Why – because you could be hung for theft by taking the clothes, as they belonged to the relatives of the deceased, but not for taking the body! It was an incredible insight into the very seedy past of the study of anatomy, and although it was gruesome it allowed many to study the human body. Perhaps without the Bodysnatchers surgery wouldn’t be where it is today! For example, some of the famous early surgeons in the UK, including William and John Hunter, almost certainly would have used snatched bodies in their work!

I very much enjoyed both the talk and museum and I would highly recommend visiting!