A Year at...
Yorkshire Museum
Constantine the Great – York’s Roman Emperor was the main exhibition at the Yorkshire Museum and was formally opened by the Princess Royal in March, 2006.
Constantine the Great – York’s Roman Emperor
The exhibition was organised to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of Constantine being proclaimed Emperor in York. The exhibition brought together artefacts from across the UK and Europe.
A special commemorative service was held at York Minster to mark the anniversary on July 25, with a procession, organised by York St John University, through the streets of York, led by the Archbishop of York. The exhibition became one of the highlights of the year for the city and it attracted more than 53,000 visitors.
The Trust also published a book to accompany the exhibition, which was shortlisted for the prestigious AXA Art Newspaper and Exhibition Catalogue prize.
We worked closely with the British Museum on the exhibition and later in the year we were able to loan from them the Warren Cup – a Roman silver cup which had not been displayed outside London before.
In February our main exhibition for 2007, Fingerprints of Time, opened. This science-based interactive exhibition examines different methods of dating objects, using examples drawn from across our geology, archaeology and social history collections.
The science collections were given a higher profile elsewhere in the museum during the year.
The upper gallery was transformed into Ceramic Safari, a joint Decorative Arts/Natural History exhibition. Animal-themed pottery items were displayed in the same style as a natural history exhibition, with colourful painted backdrops.
On the lower floor a display was mounted to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the 18th century York scientific instrument maker Thomas Cooke.
This was followed by the installation of The Natural History of the Abbey, two displays devoted to the wildlife living around St Mary’s Abbey in medieval times and today.
Dating objects in Fingerprints of Time