Matt’s Money Monday

Before the Event:

Money Mondays is one of many regular events that occur at the Roman Baths and are included in the wider Roman Baths Museum. This event particularly focuses on a different aspect of money each Monday.  

For my individual display, I chose to focus my attention to the Gods, Goddesses and Heroes who are depicted on Roman coinage. I realised I would be able to intertwine with The Beau Street Coin Hoard which the Roman Baths are currently cleaning (with the British Museum), recording, cataloguing, storing and displaying.

I wanted to exhibit selected deities found on a small number of the coins. This was done through an informative display and pairing activity. There was also opportunity to observe the coins through a magnifying glass.  

The display involved a lot of background preparation:

1.The selection of visually appropriate coins from the hoard.   

2.Creation of the correct display packaging for each coin.

3.Extensive background research, making sure all the information was relevant and accessible.

4. Writing the information displays in such a way that they had enough detailed information to educate people who were interested but they were easy to read for both English and Non-English speaking people.

5. The display had to be prepared in such a way as to be aesthetically pleasing as well as being informative and easy to understand.

6. Ensuring all the correct materials and equipment were at the right place at the right time in accordance with the event times.  

1

Discussing the detail on the coins

After the Event

The event was very successful, even though it was a fairly quiet evening, nearing 100 people came up to the display between 6pm - 8pm and actively engaged in conversation about the display and about the coin hoard and its current story.

It was a massive learning curve for me to see how displays and exhibitions are put together from the very beginning and just how much time and effort needs to go into them in order to make people engage and provide opportunities for them.

There were defiantly areas for improvement on the display, which were only realized once the display was setup (such as font/paragraph size and the grouping of texts and images). 

Examining the Roman Coin with Jupiter on the obverse.

Matthew Batchelor, Roman Society intern