Thanks to the University of Leicester’s School of Museum
Studies, I am fortunate enough to spend my summer in Bath, carrying out a
placement with the Collections team of the Roman Baths. This
experience is giving me the opportunity to strengthen my knowledge in museum
studies, as well as to discover, day by day, the most interesting facts about
the history of this inspiring site, directly from the objects belonging to its
collection.
One of my
favourite moments so far was to design a handling table for the so-called Tuesday
Timetable evening event. The idea is to take out objects from the store and
offer visitors a literally “hands-on” engagement, in the fascinating backdrop
of the Great Baths.
The title of my Tuesday Timetable was “Power through
Fashion”. As part of my background in Classical archaeology, I am very
interested in ancient history of art, especially iconography, that is to say
the study and interpretation of images and their symbols.
In the past, coins and statues served the role of today’s
newspapers and mass media, spreading images and their symbolic meanings through
space and time. Since coins were the main means of exchange, and statues
decorated public places, people easily got used to the represented imagery.
In ancient Greece deities and mythical heroes were the
most common subjects to be found on coins, but the Romans replaced them with
actual portraits of emperors and members of the royal family, using coins and
statues as tools for political propaganda. Romans expressed their individuality and power through
fashion. Emperors’ wives showed several hairstyles, from simple to extremely
elaborated ones, and rulers wore radiate crowns or laurel wreaths, having a
beard or being shaved.
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| Bust of a woman showing a typical Flavian hairstyle (end of the 1st century CE). copyright Capitoline Museums Rome |
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| Bust of the Emperor Hadrian (76-138 CE), who reintroduced the fashion of having a beard. copyright National Roman Museum, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme Rome. |
On my display, people could admire pictures of ancient
sculptures and their style, and on the table Greek and Roman coins, and the
replicas of the heads of Sulis Minerva and Agrippina the Elder, mother of the
Emperor Caligula, were free to touch. But not only these ! Some ancient artistic
models became emblems of the Western culture. In the rich Roman Baths' collection, I
found and displayed some 19th century British medals, depicting the
Royals as ancient gods.
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| My Tuesday Timetable by the Great Bath |
Visitors enjoyed looking at and touching the objects, comparing
past fashion, taste and lifestyles to our contemporary societies. Children were
also happy to draw pictures of themselves as kings and queens on a
coin, the activity I designed for the table.
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| Me and my classmate Yahao… From Leicester to Bath! |
Chiara Marabelli
School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
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