scholarly journals Mapping material culture: exploring the interface between museum artefacts and their geographical context

2010 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Cowie ◽  
Peter McKeague
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Online Resource ◽  
Historical Monuments ◽  
National Museums ◽  
Geographical Context

This paper describes the results of an exploratory project undertaken by National Museums Scotland and the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland to enhance their respective databases through sharing information relating to their respective areas of expertise. The resulting MAGI (Museum Artefact Geographical Interface) project highlighted the huge potential for creating an online resource to re-connect objects in museum collections with the locations of their discovery.

The Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England)

Antiquity ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 55 (214) ◽  
pp. 106-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Fowler
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Original Title ◽  
Historical Monuments ◽  
Historic Monuments ◽  
New Framework

My original title deliberately contained several layers of ambiguity. First, my paper is official and ‘on the record’. Secondly, it refers incidentally to RCHM'S ‘track record’ and makes a few observations about the Commission's achievements and failures. Thirdly, and most importantly, it discusses the nature and future of that part of the national record of England's cultural heritage for which the Commission has the prime responsibility. That responsibility, implicit in the original 1908 Royal Warrant, and made explicit in its revised Warrant of 1963, involves the acquisition, storage and dissemination of information about the country's historic monuments and constructions in the widest sense of the phrase. The development of such a national record was envisaged by those who, in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, agitated for the setting up of a Commission-type body. The record was to be the basis on which such a body could carry out its most pressing function, that is to assess the nation's monumental heritage in order to advise on what is worthy of preservation. A whole history could be written on how and why things turned out differently, but what I want to do here is to adumbrate the new framework for the changing emphases in the role of the Commission in the later twentieth century.

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