Dover Museum Roadshow Exhibition
On Saturday, July 13, LEGISE (Landscape Explorers Group in South East) organised and hosted an exhibition in partnership with the Dover Museum.
The day included excellent metal detecting displays by the Cinque Ports, Royal Phoenix, and White Cliffs metal detecting clubs, showcasing their finds over the years. There were also interesting archaeological displays from the Kent Archaeological Society, Dover Archaeological Group, Isle Heritage CIC, and the Romney Marshland Community Archaeological Group – one of the displays had an amazing sword on show!
Conservator Dana Goodburn-Brown held a Conservation Workshop Corner, showing you how to clean and store your finds for the future. You could even strike your own Saxon penny with the East Kent Vikings and see the Medieval Displays by Alex and Pam Summers.
The LEGISE group hosted a table to show and discuss the liaison and support work provided to the hobby and Heritage bodies. There was also a photography, identification, and recording area for anyone to visit and ask for assistance.
Right in the middle of the exhibition, Isabelle Diggle (Kent Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme) had her display of recorded finds and further information on the PAS. It was a great opportunity for detectorists and archaeologists to meet her to discuss finds and treasure and ask any questions they may have. The exhibition day certainly put the word liaison back into the FLO title. During the event, two very interesting presentations were held in the lecture theatre.
The morning talk, 'Detecting 40 years in 40 minutes' by David Barwell, covered the journey right from the beginning, where there was little or no communication with archaeology, right up to today, when Kent archaeologists and many detectorists are now. Working together to uncover, reveal and record history.
Dr Andrew Richardson gave the afternoon talk about Anglo-Saxon ladies in Kent. This was a fascinating presentation! Dr Richardson explained that since 2017, DNA and tooth enamel have been used to determine the Anglo-Saxon ladies’ relations and where they lived and came from across the globe.
The whole day was conducive for all who attended and exhibited from archaeological detectorist groups, PAS, and conservation, to be able to talk to each other; several ideas have emerged from such discussions already.
There was good representation from the general public and visiting detectorists, historians, and archaeologists, which made for much discussion.
LEGISE aims to continue fostering relations in Kent between detectorists and archaeologists so that everybody can share a wider range of knowledge about our past.
If you’d like to get a sneak peek into what the day was like, you can watch a short video produced by Emma about the exhibition on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-rzhmMkwa_g
This is not the end; it is just the beginning. Hopefully, more events like this can take place across the UK. We are all in this together, trying to achieve the same goal—to reveal, record and preserve history for the future.
