Object Handling boxes

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Tengu

Full Member
Jan 10, 2006
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New course, new dissertation...the fun bit.

And the hard bit.

I am planning to work with museum handling boxes...Something I have experience of. Both making them and exploring them.

And then to see if I can apply this learning to an Archival environment.

(But of course, Archives have artefacts and Museums have archives...)

What do you think? Have any of you been involved in making a handling box? Experience of teaching with a handling box?
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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S. Lanarkshire
Yes, me.

Historic Scotland had a wide range of them that could be sent out to schools, but were usually originally used for specific projects first. They had three made for an activity that Monarch and I travelled with throughout the Highlands and inner hebrides.
Bronze and Iron age, and absolutely lovely stuff.

Ehm, not quite sure what kind of information you're looking for on this.

The commissioned pieces ranged from re-created bronze age jewellery, weapons and axes to flints and woodwork.
It was all expensive to re-create authentically enough to be 'real', iimmc. That, and the fact that it was very tactile, very much stuff everyone wanted to handle, made it a pain to keep an eye on, especially with all the rest of the stuff. We were fortunate and didn't lose anything, but some pieces ...flints, and a jet necklace, were broken. It happens, and I repaired the necklace and we had another flint knapped, but if one of the bronze axe heads had gone missing then that was a couple of hundred pounds to replace.

So, think on your budget, and think about breakages/loses/perhaps replacement insurance of some kind.

The flints were authentically sharp, too sharp for children to handle without oversight and care....they were 'real' but the handling ones didn't need to be. I did carve up a joint of meat, and a chicken when showing them in use, but blunt ones would have been fine for the tactile bit....that's just an example, Victorian needles, or horn or leatherworkers tools are another sort of thing to consider, "Do they need to be sharp?", because there's always a numpty who'll try it; we barely stopped on rambunctious child from deheading another with a gladius on another event, and that was blunt, but it was still a heavy lump of metal being swung at another child by a strapping great lout of a what was technically a p7 child.

Clothing is always popular, but well, snot, sweat, occasional lice, bare feet and plantar warts.....and you have to store it.....I know why schools are often iffy about dress up boxes. You can end up with so many rules about using stuff that it kind of takes away the fun of the box if you're not careful.

Basically the box is best 'presented' by someone who knows about the pieces and doesn't let it become a rummage. Boxes sent to schools can be sent with all the instructions you like, but teachers get busy, and not every child/teacher/school is careful. If you price them out of the range of activities then they simply won't apply for them.
It's a balance between getting the stuff out there, it's costs, and replacement costs, and it's relevance to the curriculum or museum in question.

I don't think there is any definitive one size/style fits all. I think each situation needs it's own plan.

I'll see if I can find images, Tengu, but they were on the old site.

DSCF0030.jpg
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Cool, we never had those when I was a school child!
We looked in books, and I recall several school films about the various ages....

Then we made the tools from clay, and painted them metallic paints.
( I guess those paints are banned today, the dolvents gave us all dorts of cancers and killed off our brains?)


No doubt much of the info was wrong as Archeology has progressed somewhat since then.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
So, would this be a handling box of wood carving tools used all up and down the Pacific Northwest coast by the First Nations communities?
Lots of crooked knives, many rebuilt from other knives, a 2-handed planer knife and an elbow adze?
NEW PICTURES 007.JPG
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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McBride, BC
Thanks Seagull. I wanted to learn the old Pacific Northwest native ways so I gave up mostly on anglo gouges and such.

Those are my everyday wood carving tools. I need another box for more crooked knives and adzes.
Iron age crap on the Japan Current, so nothing can be more than 1,000 years old.
The woods are glue ups of rosewood and mahogany. I make those things.
When I began to make tools, I didn't understand what pleasure they would bring in use.
It's been damn near an addiction for 7(?) years now.
 

Tengu

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Jan 10, 2006
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No, Robson valley, that is a tool box...something different.

Not all boxes are the same

Toddy has used them, and given some sage advice.

Everything should be expendible, if possible.

Structured learning.

And not sharp!

Replica kit can be expensive; I helped the Manx National Museum design and plan their Viking one.

The budget was £1000...Ha ha.

I have several ideas for an Archival box.

The first is a really basic idea; teach the difference between a library and an archive. A library has published things and an Archive original documents, yes?

So, we have a box of items...a comic, a book, a map, a handwritten letter, a leaflet...etc.

Now sort them into a LIBRARY pile, an ARCHIVE pile, and a BOTH pile.

This is a project that adults can discuss, but I think anyone with a basic understanding of writing and print might be up to it.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
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Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
So basically a box, divided in sections.
Maybe two sections, pre and post Gutenberg. Each one divided in Archival and Library .
Pre-G: Samples of papyrus, parchment, claytablet, wood tablet?
Post-G : Samples of various prints, maybe even micro fiche, CD, DVD, stuff like that?

Is this a fairly new thing, handling boxes? Superb idea.
 
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