British Museum Research Publications – serie

The Mahābodhi temple at Bodhgayā in eastern India has long been recognised as the place where the Buddha sat in meditation and attained enlightenment. The site, soon identified as the ‘Diamond Throne’ or vajrāsana, became a destination for pilgrims and a focus of religious attention for more than two thousand years.This volume presents new research on Bodhgayā and assesses the important archaeological, artistic and literary evidence that bears witness to the Buddha’s enlightenment and to the enduring significance of Bodhgayā in the history of Buddhism. The book brings together a team of international scholars to look at the history and perception of the site across the Buddhist world and its position in the networks of patronage and complex religious landscape of northern India. The volume assesses the site’s decline in the thirteenth century, as well as its subsequent revival as a result of archaeological excavations in the nineteenth century. Using the British Museum’s collections as a base, the authors discuss the rich material culture excavated from the site that highlights Bodhgayā’s importance in the field of Buddhist studies.

From the introduction of woodblock printing in China to the development of copper-plate engraving in Europe, the print medium has been used around the world to circulate knowledge. Ceramic artists across time and cultures have adapted these graphic sources as painted or transfer-printed images applied onto glazed or unglazed surfaces to express political and social issues including propaganda, self-promotion, piety, gender, national and regional identities. Long before photography, printers also included pots in engravings or other two-dimensional techniques which have broadened scholarship and encouraged debate.  Pots, Prints and Politics examines how European and Asian ceramics traditionally associated with the domestic sphere have been used by potters to challenge convention and tackle serious issues from the 14th to the 20th century. Using the British Museum’s world-renowned ceramics and prints collections as a base, the authors have challenged and interrogated a variety of ceramic objects – from teapots to chamber pots – to discover new meanings that are as relevant today as they were when they were first conceived.

This groundbreaking volume brings together scholars of the art and archaeology of late antiquity (c. 200−1000), across cultures and regions reaching from India to Iberia, to discuss how objects can inform our understanding of religions. During this period major transformations are visible in the production of religious art and in the relationships between people and objects in religious contexts across the ancient world. These shifts in behaviour and formalising of iconographies are visible in art associated with numerous religious traditions including, but not limited to, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, religions of the Roman Empire, and paganism in northern Europe. Studies of these religions and their material culture, however, have been shaped by Eurocentric and post-Reformation Christian frameworks that prioritised Scripture and minimised the capacity of images and objects to hold religious content. Despite recent steps to incorporate objects, much academic discourse, especially in comparative religion, remains stubbornly textual. This volume therefore seeks to explore the ramifications of placing objects first and foremost in the comparative study of religions in late antiquity, and to consider the potential for interdisciplinary conversation to reinvigorate the field.

Robert Codrington (1830-1922) trained to be a priest at Oxford University. He volunteered to work in Nelson, New Zealand, from 1860-4 and was appointed as headmaster of the Melanesian Mission training school on Norfolk Island in 1867. He spent the next twenty years in this post and for eight of these he was the head of the Mission travelling through the Melanesian region. Throughout his time in the region he attempted to gain an ethnographic understanding of the people whom he was serving. To this end he studied local languages and translated scriptures into Mota, the lingua franca of the Mission. However, for Codrington material artefacts were fundamental to his understanding of Melanesian life. He took a lively interest in material culture as a collector and donated objects to a number of museums, including the British Museum and The Pitt Rivers Museum. His specialist knowledge made him a valued informant for scholars of Melanesia who regularly consulted him. He is regarded today as one of the founding scholars of Pacific anthropology.  This book intends to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how Codrington formed his collection, through the study of his written anthropological works, correspondence with other collectors and scholars and particularly through the private correspondence with his brother and his five journals written between 1867 and 1882. The book also highlights his equally important contribution to the development of material culture studies in the region and how his work has influenced Melanesian studies to the present day.

This is the companion volume to one devoted to recent research on Byzantine jewellery published in 2010 and forms part of a series organised under the auspices of the British Museum Byzantine Seminar Series. The conference brought together leading scholars from Europe, the USA and the Middle East to discuss Late Antique gems and cameos. This is the first time that so many diverse papers, interdisciplinary in nature, have been assembled in a single volume and includes scientific papers addressing issues such as typology and sourcing of gemstones.

Cosmetic sets are small two-piece bronze toilet implements for the preparation of mineral powders, probably colourings for the eyelids and face. Found almost exclusively in Britain, they range in date from the Late Iron Age to the 4th century. An association with fertility is indicated by the crescent shape, by overtly phallic imagery and by the twinning of male and female animal heads. Ralph Jackson's research led to proper recognition of the type, and subsequently the British Museum has built up the largest single collection (160 examples). This catalogue includes not only the British Museum examples but also those in other museums and private collections throughout Britain. It focuses on typology and function but also considers manufacture, including the results of scientific analysis, followed by full discussions of decoration, context, distribution and dating.

Jewellery is often viewed as a feminine preoccupation, but in Tudor and Jacobean England men wore just as much (if not more) jewellery as their female counterparts. Jewels themselves were valued not merely for their intrinsic monetary worth, but also for their ability to reflect status and lineage, as well as sustain social bonds and networks of reciprocity. Bejewelled offers an in-depth discussion of the contexts in which jewellery in Tudor and Jacobean England was circulated from a male perspective, considering the jewels as valid items of material culture worthy of study and attention, rather than as mere trifles of adornment. Amongst other subjects, the book analyses the social and historical contexts in which jewellery was acquired, owned and circulated, interrogating the meanings that these jewels had for their male owners. The publication will highlight artefacts from the British Museum’s collection, such as the magnificent Lyte Jewel from the Waddesdon Bequest and the sealing devices of Sir Thomas Smith and Sir Walter Ralegh, as well as lesser-known objects such as the rings of the serjeants-at-law and a group of bronze plaquettes. By including material that has been discovered in archaeological contexts, along with evidence from inventories and wills as well as portraits showing these jewels being worn, this publication seeks to reposition jewellery, presenting it not merely as a concern of the elite but as something that was owned, worn and valued by a range of men across English society.

In 1999 and 2007 respectively, the central courtyard and the northwest corner of the British Museum estate were redeveloped in order to create two iconic additions to the institution: the Great Court and the World Conservation and Exhibitions Centre. The execution of these projects provided the opportunity to investigate the archaeology and history of the Bloomsbury area and the museum itself through excavation and archival research. This volume presents the results of the ensuing studies undertaken by Pre-Construct Archaeology and in so doing details the evolution of this area of London from the Roman period into modern times. The book charts the impact that the growth of the Museum and its collection has had on the surrounding area of Bloomsbury, as well as focusing on two of the key finds of the excavation: the discovery of the hitherto elusive Civil War defences of London and the intriguing assemblage of dead cows recovered from an early 18th-century collection of graves buried underneath the site. The book presents an overview of the wider urban landscape in which the British Museum is situated and discusses multiple interconnected themes from urban development and housing to domestic material culture and urban garden design. The result is a fascinating study of one of the most iconic areas of London and provides a fresh insight into the history of the British Museum.