Hello everyone, my name is Helen Sharp, the Curator of Archaeology for Leicestershire County Council Museum Collections. I work across all of our Heritage sites, museums and collections stores.
I started at Leicestershire County Council in May 2008 on the Southeast Leicestershire Treasure project, a collection now known as the Hallaton Treasure and in 2012, I got the job that I have now.
So how did I get into archaeology? When I was little, my family and I used to visit ruins and castles all over the UK. I used to love imagining what people were doing back then.
A typical week for me as the Curator of Archaeology could be in any one of our Museum Collections stores or anyone of our five Museum sites including Bosworth Battlefield, the 1620’s House and Gardens, Charnwood Museum, Melton Carnegie Museum or Harborough Museum. I might be repacking, caring for or cataloguing objects to make sure our processes are up to national museum standards.
I could be responding to enquiries from the public who want more information or to visit or look at specific collections. I might be installing a new display or exhibition or working with our volunteers. I liaise with our colleagues in the Leicestershire County Council Historic and Natural Environment Team that covers planning applications from an archaeological perspective. When new building developments are deemed to be in an area that has potential for archaeological remains that could be destroyed by that process, developers must pay professional archaeologists to investigate. At the end of that process, an archaeological archive (could be documentary and/or finds) is generated and we are the repository for that material from the county. We make sure the archives are submitted to national standards and we make them publicly available for research or engagement.
The reason why my job is so important is that archaeology is a destructive process. It's important to care for our historic and natural environment so it's an archaeologist’s job to make a record of it prior to development. My role as a curator is to look after collections and enable the public to access this material in a variety of ways.
At the moment, I am working on The Hallaton helmet. It’s one of the rarest objects being one of the best Roman helmets ever found in Europe. It’s part of the Hallaton Treasure which is a very significant collection of objects buried at a late Iron Age ritual site near the village of Hallaton. It’s really high-status and from the first century AD.
The original is obviously not shiny anymore as it’s been in the ground for 2,000 years. It was expertly pieced back together by British Museum Conservators. We really wanted to get across to people how amazing and magnificent it would have been. We re-analysed the helmet working with world renowned illustrators, art historians, silversmiths and replica makers. One replica used 21st century techniques such as CAD modelling, 3D printing, electroforming, silver-plating and gilding. The other replica was made by more traditional methods by hand. The replicas are now on proud display at Harborough Museum alongside the original helmet.
Looking forward into the future, we are installing a new display which will be in the summer to mark The Battle of Bosworth and the Heritage Centre’s 50th Anniversary. We've got a lot of objects that were found as part of the metal detecting survey that located the battlefield where King Richard III was killed. These include a tiny Bosworth Boar badge that is thought to be worn by one of King Richard’s followers, and a recently found coin hoard.
I’m also looking forward to the launch of My Jewellery, My Story - an exciting project exploring local people’s connection to jewellery having been inspired by a beautiful Bronze Age necklace discovered in the small village of Cossington in Leicestershire.
For more information on Leicestershire County Council’s museums collections, visit the collections website.