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Objects can be made from a single type of material such as vessels made from wooden or pottery, or coins made from metals. Others can be made from a variety of different materials combined together, for example, shoes made from leather with a metal buckle. It is possible, therefore, that in the table below a single object might appear under 2 or more headings. In some instances the material from which the object is made is unknown (this is true for one in ten of the objects in the second collection, but a lesser proportion in the founding collection). The first table gives the number of objects that are categorised as containing each wide variety of material, the second how important that material is in the collection based on numbers of objects that contain it.
|
Material |
Founding collection |
2nd collection |
UK founding collection |
UK 2nd collection |
|
No. of objects |
||||
|
Animal |
2122 |
1179 |
346 |
154 |
|
Bird |
147 |
68 |
9 |
0 |
|
Metal |
4006 |
6702 |
835 |
2037 |
|
Plant |
5093 |
2308 |
256 |
129 |
|
Pottery |
4254 |
4257 |
3412 |
908 |
|
Stone |
5236 |
2979 |
2367 |
821 |
|
Material |
Founding collection ranking |
2nd collection ranking |
UK founding collection ranking |
UK 2nd collection ranking |
|
Animal |
5 |
5 |
4 |
4 |
|
Bird |
6 |
6 |
6 |
6 |
|
Metal |
4 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
|
Plant |
2 |
4 |
5 |
5 |
|
Pottery |
3 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
|
Stone |
1 |
3 |
2 |
3 |
It will be seen that stone (mostly used to make archaeological stone tools) is the most important material in the founding collection and metal is the most important material in the second collection (mostly used in making weapons, tools etc). The most important material in the founding material UK collections is pottery (mostly, as we have seen elsewhere from archaeological pottery sherds). The UK artefacts in the second collection reflect the overall collection by being made most often from metal.
AP, 1 June 2010
