Crosby Garrett Helmet Conference

Saturday 9 November The Crosby Garrett Helmet - the local and international contexts 

It is interesting to note quite a lot of hits this evening on this blog, people looking at my old posts on the Crosby Garrett helmet. I suspect this is because they were searching the web when they got home from today's conference in the Lecture Theatre of Tullie House (the Museum in association with the Centre of North-Western Studies of the University of Lancaster, the Senhouse Museum and the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society) on the Crosby Garrett Roman Parade Helmet. I was wondering whether to go, the morning session was going to "concentrate of the site where the helmet was found", with a lot of stuff putting the helmet in the wider international context. But it was the archaeological context that interested me and I saw that "concentrate on" these days means two half-hour presentations before lunch. Hardly worth the flight over and getting up to Carlisle for.

10.45 – 11.20 The Crosby Garrett Helmet: its discovery and restoration – Dot Boughton, Finds Liaison Officer (Lancashire and Cumbria), Portable Antiquities Scheme

11.20 – 12.00 The Crosby Garrett Helmet: a geophysical and landscape survey – Patricia Shaw, Freelance Archaeologist and Archaeobotanist

12.00 – 12.30 Archaeological Evaluation of the Crosby Garrett helmet findspot – Chris Healey, Director, Minerva Heritage Ltd 

Note what is missing is a presentation by Darren Bradbury who beat the pieces into the shape we see and stuck it all together and tarted it up. The finder is not talking, only Ms Boughton - who was not the PAS staff member who dealt with it when it appeared in Christie's. No doubt if something of any archaeological interest was found, we will soon be seeing a full report by Ms Shaw and Mr Healey presenting those geophysical results and the conclusions of the evaluation'. My bet is that there will still be unanswered questions because of the manner in which this find was handled.