Prince Albert Memorial Museum Exeter

 Happy Thursday Greetings to you! 

A few weeks ago, I paid a very quick visit to the Prince Albert Memorial Museum in Exeter before I headed south to the Historical Novel Society Conference in Devon. 

pugio scabbard 

I was mostly interested in any Roman artefacts in their collections but found them quite limited. When speaking to a museum attendant, she told me there have been few remains uncovered from the Roman era to date around Exeter, and only some very messy digging under Exeter Cathedral might be the answer to increasing their artefact count. Exeter is like many cities in England where the Romans created forts or fortresses and subsequent peoples chose to use the same site on which to build their earliest Christian churches.

Over time, those early churches were replaced and some of them ended up being the most impressive Medieval buildings (architecturally speaking). There will be Roman remains to be found under Exeter Cathedral, undoubtedly, but it's unlikely any will ever be dug up to add to the museum collections since attitudes to how acquisitions are made have changed so much over the centuries.

Strigil

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The strigil above actually came from a Kent find, but is displayed in the museum to show the visitor what one would have looked like. [Some fragments of iron and copper strigils were found in Exeter but not sufficient to put together a complete sample.] The cleansing process of adding oil to the body, then scraping it back off again - along with the dirt and debris accumulated on the skin  - is easy to imagine when admiring the strigil above.

I found some of the non-Roman collections fascinating, the Devon lace in particular. It is so intricately done.

Devon lace

It was a short visit but worth seeing. 

Slainte!