Category: Touring Exhibition

by Jodie Thompson, Project Coordinator

Now that the (archaeological, Roman-era) dust has properly settled on our exciting touring exhibition and all its warm-up events– I, LatinNow’s Project Coordinator, wanted to reflect on what exactly just happened on my own LatinNow anniversary – one year on the job!

Our exciting and elaborate tour of six different European countries finished its first outing in October and the end of the year was marked with two exciting finales – our PI, Dr Alex Mullen has introduced a beautiful new baby to the world, and I went on an all-inclusive, beach holiday – fireworks all-round, I think!

In the office, having a go at putting together our Gallic helmet

It was an unbelievably ambitious task putting ‘VOCES POPVLI’ together. Artifacts were loaned to us by the University of Nottingham’s Museum and famous and large finds such as the Lancaster Rider and the Leiden Nehalennia goddess altar were carefully photographed on-location and expertly 3D printed and reconstructed. A unique, six colour, six-sided, collapsible table was designed and built to accompany the six sections of the exhibition. Six different versions of the backdrop displays were produced in English, Spanish (Castilian), Catalan, French, German and Dutch by our multilingual team. T-shirts and highly addictive sparkly scratch tablets were ordered, the exhibition layout was planned, our fabulous tour driver Alex was briefed, and I worked on the mammoth task of working out the logistics of transporting the exhibition and our very international team around 12 European locations. So many hotel bookings! So many postcodes! And SO many parking restrictions!

The ‘essentials’ box

I’ve been particularly pleased that in this role, I’ve managed to flex my artistic muscles for the first time in my day job by fabricating the VOCES POPVLI case. It did take a few goes at the lettering, but that’s because as the ONLY member of the team who doesn’t know Latin, I had to learn that the capital letter ‘U’ has no place in our exhibition. In our office, you can’t spell ‘SUCCESS’ without…V!

Planning the layout of the handling case

The night before the exhibition set off saw me sat crossed legged on the Nottingham office floor, in front of LatinNow’s Sulis curse shrine, polishing our beautiful replica Roman helmet, surrounded by pieces of artifact protective foam and empty packets of crisps (healthy lunches went out the window at this point). It was a fun chaos. The day after the exhibition was packed up and sent off on its international mega-tour, I looked around the much emptier Nottingham office like a parent when the kids have moved out.

The kit all packed up and ready to set off

And now, it’s back!

I must admit having a major case of FOMO (that’s “Fear Of Missing Out” in student lingo) on not going on tour with the exhibition. I’m really proud to be part of a project that has travelled to so many interesting and important heritage sites around Europe. I imagine it was a unique experience for our driver, Alex Wallis, to have a fluent speaker and native expert accompanying each leg of the tour. I imagine it was not dissimilar to Michael Palin’s experience’s on ‘Pole to Pole’ – expect this time it was ‘Dig Site to Dig Site’!

My favourite part of my 12 months on the job, however, has been getting the visitor comments scroll back in the office and seeing in front of me what all those countries and visitors thought of LatinNow.

The team did also help alleviate my FOMO by sending me a lovely souvenir from the tour. A memento from Brugg, which is now hanging up in the project office in Nottingham!

In 2020, we will be working on bringing VOCES POPVLI to more locations and events in the UK. If you work with a school/museum/festival and want to host LatinNow, please do get in touch! Until then, I’m very excited (and in all honesty, a bit nervous) to have the Sulis curse shrine back in my office.

By Pieter Houten

After a month of touring we reached the last leg: The Netherlands. We all did parts of the tour, but not Alex the Driver from Van Haulin’, who was there for the whole month. We owe great thanks to Alex for putting up with all of us and driving our precious cargo around! Curmisagius and his team could not have wished for a better companion.

The last stop was the Thermenmuseum in Heerlen. I must admit that I am slightly biased when talking about this museum; it is in my home region. Nonetheless, our three days there were outright amazing. The museum staff got inspired by our collaboration to make their own temporary exposition on evidence for writing found in Roman Heerlen. As if organising your own exposition is not enough, the museum staff, especially Jody Martens, went all in to organise a memorable last stop. One of these memorable events was an interview with the provincial newspaper to spread the word.

Thursday morning started really well when we discovered that the article in the newspaper was not a small item, as the journalist stated at first, but a half page article with a prominent position. As we arrived at the museum for our first day, Jody told us that the article had people signing up for our public lecture the next day. The Thursday itself was, as we called it, an internal research day. We did an RTI (Reflectance Transformation Imaging) demonstration to introduce the technique and afterwards we had a research meeting with archaeologists from the region. For three hours we discussed possible ways to collaborate in the future and understand the international context better. At three o’clock we had to finish as the local magistrate for cultural heritage Jordy Clemens was invited to officially open our exhibition and the History month at the museum. Another surprise was the unveiling of an inscription, yes an actual marble inscription, commemorating our joint venture. The whole day museum guide Peter took the role of ambassador for LatinNOW at our display.

Friday was supposed to be a rather normal day. People visiting the museum, seeing our exhibition and talking to us. Not in Heerlen. They organised a mini-symposium ‘Ite et Docete’ for schools in the region where two Nijmegen university lecturers were invited to present. To finish the mini-symposium we gave a public talk for the over 90 pupils present. As this symposium and public lecture filled up too quickly, Jody asked us to do it again in the afternoon. Thanks to the article in the newspaper, we had another 73 people attending in the afternoon. As if these two massive events were not enough at least four school groups from Germany visited the museum. We were glad that another of our post-docs, Anna Willi, could join us to lead these in German whilst I handled the Dutch.

The last day in Heerlen was Saturday, luckily a slightly quiet day. We had the odd visitor passing by for the Roman Bathhouse and enjoying their luck that we were there. In addition, we had 32 children for the Workshop Curse like a Roman. With 62 visitors, Saturday gave us some breathing space, after two days of over 200 visitors. We celebrated the success with some real Limburgse vlaoj.

In total several thousand people saw our 6-country, 6-language touring exhibition as we made our way across the Continent. We had a clicker and counted well over 2000 engagements, that is children and adults who came to our talks/school sessions/tried out our activities and spent time discussing Romans with us. With our idea to put all our material freely available on our website we hope to continue the outreach of our project to the European community. And… don’t tell the LatinNOW team just yet, we’re still recovering… we are planning some UK events this summer too!

By Pieter Houten

The last week of the tour started at the Sincfala Museum in Knokke-Heist Belgium. Knokke-Heist is a beach resort at the Belgian coast and they had set up a great exhibition on the Roman period in the region and welcomed us for two days. As autumn had begun in the northwest in the week we arrived, the beach resort was not super busy. Still we drew in several people coming specifically to see our two-day pop-up. At the slow moments, the museum offered distractions to keep us on our feet. Obviously, there was the coffee, which according to Alex the Driver academics drink way too much of. In addition, the museum had a photo booth allowing us to take some photos dressed up as Romans. Finally, to break the silence there was a one-minute music fragment on repeat. I repeat: there was a one-minute music fragment on repeat in the museum. We heard that masterpiece at least 660 times.

After leaving Knokke-Heist we went to Sint Lodewijkscollege in Bruges. At this school, we launched the military race. This is a workshop created for small groups of pupils, normally up to 20. Pupils get an explanation on how Latin was used by the Roman army. After this they have to sign up for the Roman army by creating groups of 8 and writing their names in Old Roman Cursive on a tablet. When the list of names is written in correct ORC they get a military message. Again in ORC that has to be transcribed to get the next message and so they race to become the first group obtaining the full message. At the College they wanted us to do the race with two massive groups: both of 120 pupils. After this experience, I can tell you that hordes of pupils wanting to get the next message at the same time can be slightly overpowering. At one point, a dozen pupils with correct answers almost crushed me in their attempt to be the first! Luckily, Francesca, Alex and the staff of Sint Lodewijkscollege were there to help. In the end, the exercise was a great success; all students had their go at learning in a fun way about the Roman army, Latin and ORC.

After engaging with 240 fantastic students the three Team Belgium crew members had no time to rest before heading straight over to the Netherlands with the sound track from the Sincfala Museum still ringing in our ears!

 

By Anna Willi

When I was a student at Zurich University, our Professor of Latin literature used to go into rhapsodies over Trier, which was his home town. “Trier is full of superlatives. It is the oldest town in Germany, has the best preserved Roman mosaics, the best preserved Roman baths and the best preserved basilica north of the Alps. It is truly the Rome of the North!” I had never been able to join one of his excursions to the ancient Augusta Treverorum so I was excited to finally see it in person when VOCES POPVLI came to the Rheinisches Landesmuseum earlier this month. I was not disappointed!

The LatinNow team, reinforced by Selina, had a very warm welcome from the museum staff. They set us up in front of the Rheineck-Altar which made for a beautiful backdrop for our display.

Augusta Treverorum was the capital of the civitas Treverorum and it was also where the imperial procurator resided. In the 3rd century AD it was used as the residence of the emperor. The Roman remains are indeed impressive. One of the Roman city gates, now called Porta Nigra, survives in exceptionally good condition and provides an impressive view from the town square. Two large baths can still be seen as well as the basilica mentioned above, which was added to the imperial palace by Constantine I and preserved because it was later used as a church. Several large funerary monuments with exceptional reliefs have been excavated and the evidence for numerous Roman wine presses and vineyards in the surroundings of the town bear testament to the long history of the region’s most famous product.

In addition to such monuments in town and landscape, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum has a wealth of incredible objects, amongst them several that are of importance for the history of language and literacy in Roman times. This resulted in wonderful synergies with our exhibition. For example, their objects include the Neumagen relief with a school scene, which is also featured in our display. While our display only shows a section of the relief, the visitors in Trier were able to walk into the room next door, the ‘Gräberstraße’, to see the whole monument, including the depiction of a student just entering the scene and carrying a case with writing tablets in his hand.

What is more, two inscriptions in our display are linked to Treveri. One of them is Insus, son of Vodullus, a rider – the Treverans were famous for being skilled riders – who died in Britannia and was given a funerary monument with a Latin inscription and a colourful and at the same time gruesome depiction that shows him riding over a beheaded enemy. Insus was a Celtic-named recruit in the Roman army fighting the British Celts. Could he have been reminded of his own native Celtic language when he heard his opponents shouts in battle?

The other civis Trever in our display is Marcus Excingius Agricola, a negotiator salarius or salt trader. Possibly on his way to or from Britannia he stopped at the sanctuary of Dea Nehalennia and made a sacrifice, presumably in order to ask for safe travels and good business. To commemorate the occasion, he set up a dedicatory inscription with a relief that depicts the goddess. The inscription was found near Colijnsplaat (The Netherlands) and is one of numerous dedications to Nehalennia found in this area. This Treveran, who may have been of Celtic-speaking origins given his name Excingius, set up an inscription in Roman fashion and in Latin, the lingua franca of his profession, to an indigenous Germanic/Celtic goddess.

The two days we spent in Trier coincided with the school holidays, and the second day with the national holiday ‘Tag der Deutschen Einheit’. Many families but also teachers visited us, and it quickly became clear that the inhabitants of Trier and its surroundings have a deep interest in the Roman past. Many visitors stayed for 30 minutes or more, asking questions about the objects and deciphering Old Roman Cursive with us. We really enjoyed discussing writing techniques and languages with them – and we may even have convinced one or two teachers to teach their students about how ‘non-classical’ Latin can tell us something about the people who used it!

Vielen Dank, Trier, wir kommen wieder!

By Selina Stokar

After a glorious time in France, VOCES POPVLI’s next stop was the Vindonissa Museum Brugg in Switzerland, where the archaeological treasures of ancient Vindonissa are kept.
Here, the team for the German speaking part of the tour – Anna and our driver Alex, who is now fluent in German or at least he now knows ‘Rivella’, the most important word – was joined by (taaadaaa!) me, Selina Stokar. I am a History and Classics student at the University of Zurich and used to work with Anna during her PhD. That is also when my love for Roman inscriptions began, and with the VOCES POPVLI Tour it has of course grown even more! Coincidentally, I am also doing an internship at the Vindonissa Museum, so when Anna asked me to assist her for this part of the tour I immediately said yes!

Nowadays, Brugg is a very quiet, nice little town near the German border (lots of cows and colourful buildings, just as you would imagine Switzerland to look like). In Roman times, Vindonissa (the Roman name of Brugg / Windisch) was the only legionary camp based in modern Switzerland (we are very proud of this fact). Around 15 BC a first military camp was set up near an older pre-Roman settlement. In the following 100 years, three legions – the 13th, the 21th and the 11th – lived in the camp and constantly enlarged it until the last legion left Vindonissa in the year 101 AD to fight in emperor Trajan’s Dacian Wars. There was also a little village (vicus) for civilians next to the camp as well as an amphitheatre, where 11’0000 visitors could enjoy their free time. With 6000 legionaries, their families and all the other staff that normally accompanied Roman legions, I guess ancient Brugg / Windisch was busier than it is today!

The greatest treasure of Vindonissa – and the reason why VOCES POPVLI came here – is the garbage dump of the legionary camp: for over 70 years, the inhabitants of the camp and the vicus piled up their waste just outside the northern gate of the camp (imagine the smell – urrgh!). Due to advantageous soil conditions (like in Vindolanda), many organic objects such as shoes or leather goods put on the pile were preserved. Most importantly: over 600 fragments of Roman wooden writing tablets, 65 of which are still readable, were found in the garbage dump! Just like the ink tablets from Vindolanda they tell us about the day-to-day life in the camp and the vicus and offer an excellent insight into Roman everyday life. For example, there is a letter by a soldier who was on holidays but still asked for news from his comrades. He was apparently homesick and missed his normal life at the legionary camp! Furthermore, his handwriting reveals that he was not used to writing, and he made a few mistakes (which were all corrected later). Maybe he was an auxiliary soldier who had just learned Latin and writing in the army. And – just as in Vindolanda – there is a tablet written or at least sent by a woman. Unfortunately, only the names of the sender, Vindoinsa (a Celtic name), and the addressee, Annius Lucianus, are still preserved.

During our two days in Brugg many interested visitors found their way to our exhibition which was located in a tent in the garden of the museum, surrounded by Vindonissa’s stone inscriptions. As we visited during the school holidays, some teachers came without their students to get inspiration for their Latin or History lessons. There were also a few kids who practised their Latin handwriting and made a curse tablet. One boy wrote a wish instead: “World domination”, it was! How ambitious – and even a little Roman!
All our visitors were highly enthusiastic about the objects and the topic of the VOCES POPVLI exhibition. Writing and the use of language seems to be something people can identify with, and they are amazed by how it worked in Roman times. They all stayed for quite some time and were eager to discuss all the objects displayed. For me, the most surprising thing was that children were able to read the two texts in Old Roman Cursive we brought along much more easily than adults, some of them literally just read them out loud without even looking at the alphabet key!

We enjoyed two lovely days at the Vindonissa Museum in Brugg and at the very moment we started packing up the display and all the objects to leave for Trier, the biggest thunderstorm broke loose. Luckily (or thanks to Jupiter, who knows), our tent resisted all the rain and we were ready to take off for Trier!

By Alex Mullen

Preparing our European tour has been much harder work than I could ever have imagined! However, the tour has already proved rewarding, and it hasn’t even begun yet. Our first event is in Pamplona on the 16th September.

Even choosing the name of the tour was tricky. We needed something that would work across all 6 countries (Spain, France, Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands) without having to be translated, that captured the essence of what we are attempting to do, that was catchy… We opted for a simple Latin phrase on the grounds that in itself it made a point about how successful that language had become: not only is it the base of all the Romance languages, but is used in non-Romance speaking areas in vocabulary that has been borrowed or coined over the millennia, including the present day. VOCES POPVLI evokes the multiple voices of the Roman world – voces – and pushes the populations of that world to the fore – populi (and avoids the political connotations of the singular Vox Populi). As the strap line emphasises – Life and languages in the Roman West – we are interested in what happens when Latin rubs up against all the local languages in the context of the lived experiences of real people.

Given the project’s focus on sociolinguistic sensitivity and bi- and multilingualism we realised early on that we had to deliver the tour multilingually. In the end we opted for English, Spanish, Catalan, French, German and Dutch – offering the main language of each of the stops on the tour, plus English as a possible lingua franca for some visitors. It just so happens that with such a large and international team we had native speakers for every language we needed. Even with a fantastic and very patient group of translators, however, making multilingual versions of the display texts, activity worksheets, handling menus, object menus, posters and advertising materials etc. was a MASSIVE undertaking. Whenever a change had to be made to content, it had to be made 6 times… We often think that we share alphabets in western Europe but there are all sorts of subtle differences, such as the punt volat in Catalan or the inverted punctuation marks in Spanish. Although it was fiddly, the translation process actually helped us to improve the display. When a formulation resisted translation we realised, for example, that it may have been ambiguous or too technical in the English and we went back to the drawing board. We hope that the visitors to the exhibition will appreciate the choice of languages and may find it interesting to compare them side-by-side. These regional differences we see in the linguistic landscape of western Europe are exactly the same kinds of phenomena our project explores in the Roman world: the regional varieties of Latin and the local languages which persisted and visitor languages which appeared through migration made the Roman soundscape complex and fascinating.

At all our stops we are offering hand-on activities. We have a special VOCES POPVLI guitar case full of Roman writing equipment and inscribed objects for handling and we are offering military message decoding and the opportunity to ‘curse like a Roman’ and to put sparkly curses into our Sulis shrine. We’re showing people how to recognize and write their own Old Roman Cursive messages (the form of handwriting used until the third century AD) in whichever language they chose. At two of our tour stops, Millau and Bruges, we are focusing on schools groups only, at most we are open to the general public for at least part of our stay and our pop-up and activities are free and open to all (though some of the museums charge entrance fees). LatinNow team experts will be on hand to enthuse about the objects and our research.

This tour is, of course, intimately linked to our research, and we are delighted that through it we have opened various new research opportunities and linked our researchers with collections and local experts. At Heerlen in the Netherlands, for example, LatinNow has joined a research collaboration, and will be collaborating with local experts to read the epigraphy from the area and to work on the evidence for literacy, including writing equipment. Indeed the staff at Heerlen’s Thermenmuseum have prepared their own display on epigraphy and literacy to sit alongside our pop-up. We’d like to express our gratitude to all the contacts in the universities, museums and schools involved in the tour for all their efforts and to Claire Venables from Giraffe Corner making our multilingual materials look so wonderful. You can find out more about the tour objects and our experiences at the tour stops as the tour progresses in future blogs.

LatinNow Post-doc Pieter Houten at Heerlen’s Thermenmuseum

Please do visit us at one of our tour locations, if you can! Details can be found in the Touring Exhibition tab and on our LatinNow Facebook page.