Lost dreams

Roe deer orbit

  Lost Dreams 

Buxton Museum and Art Gallery,

Thursday 9th Jan 2020

I have a bit of thing for bones – more than fossils, ancient bones still remember the lives that once filled them. This piece came out of sitting looking at the bones in Buxton Museum and pondering….

Cave Bear skull, Buxton Museum

This is bone,

Not fossil,

Not stone,

But honest-to-goodness,

Ten thousand year old,

Bone.

A branch, a bough,

A giant’s club,

A woolly rhinoceros thigh.

There was marrow inside once,

Bony jelly,

A carnivore’s feast,

The pulse of life,

Wrapped in muscle and sinew and skin.

This skull,

The bone bowl of an ancient brain.

These were teeth that bit,

Jaws that gripped,

Eyes that saw,

And ears that heard.

The folded scrolls of these nostrils

Tasted a thousand scents,

Traced a thousand stories.

There is a richness of life beneath my hands,

A legacy of lost dreams.

Growing, waking,

Broad head, strong jaws,

Round ears twitch.

My hand on the hairy hump

Of a bear’s shoulders,

A dark mass heaving into movement.

Forest pools, deep and dark and still,

Eyes opening,

And I sinking,

So deep I cannot feel

Which eyes are mine

And which the bear’s...

Fox:whose bones would inspire you?

The end of the bones

Bone Detectives 

for 

British Science Week, 

12 - 20th March 2016

There were bones, and teeth, there were skulls and even the fragmented paw of a cave lion. And there was time to look, to handle , turn over, touch, test a fingertip against a crocodile’s tooth.

Time to talk, wonder, ask and ask again and say, “No!” and “What’s a hyrax?” and

“This is a porpoise?”

“Where is the elephant’s trunk?”

“Can I pick this up? Oh. Can I pick that up? Good”

There were beautiful replica skulls for the slightly squeamish and gloves for the bolder – or for anyone who just wanted to look sort-of-scientific like they were on some police procedural drama

For British Science Week, in a collaboration between Stone and Water, Buxton Museum’s Collections in the Landscape project and Creeping Toad, we ran a series of “Bone Detectives” workshops. These set out to introduce people to some basic skull features to look for and understand the clues they can give us about the original animal. The thought was that this would encourage people to look – to really open their eyes when they are out or maybe even to set off and do the hopeful walk they wouldn’t have done before

Skulls, skeletons or bits often turn up on walks over the moors of the Peak District, or perhaps are found by someone strolling in a casually acquisitive manner along a beach. We were looking for the questions (and their answers) that would set some inspired investigation in motion. We concentrated mostly on British mammal skulls – given time and the scope of vertebrate anatomy we had to draw some lines somewhere. But there were extension opportunities and as confidence grew, participants could move onto British bird skulls, a few exotic extras – a crocodile, assorted horns, replica hyrax, lynx and wallaby* and a wide selection of shells including a spread of annoying cone shells (this one? That one? No, the other one? Why would you call something a geographical cone, for goodness sake”. There was even a d-i-y snake spine

The workshops were a delight: from keenly questioning WATCH members to the surprise of casual visitors, workshops invite participation and challenged preconceptions. “But it’s so small! “ (same comment applied to rabbit, rat and squirrel skulls). People brought their own puzzles with them: beautfully delicate mouse and hedgehog skulls, a mysterious jaw bone (probably sheep), the museum added some mind-boggling teeth: woolly rhino and hyena.

The very bold in the museum went off to find the cave bear skull

We were pleased: these were sessions that maybe didn’t get quite the quiet, dedicated concentration we had imagined but they were sessions that got people handling material, talking, asking questions, feeling more confident.

Sources:

Just to be clear, the skulls and shells we sued were all found materials or were already in established collections. Nothing was killed for the sake of this project

Reproduction skulls came from a wonderful online shop: CrimsonRichDesire

* and, yes, we know we had a small population of feral wallabies until recently in the Roaches. Sadly missed

A few more bones

A few more bones

without apology, I enjoy bones. I have a pile of skulls, shells and bones in the living room complete with festive toadstools and twinkly lights (is it any wonder I live alone with axolotls and fish?)

And with Bone Detectives brewing, I've dug out a couple of ol' bone poems. Enjoy, dismiss or ignore, it's your choice

SOCKET

The sweep of the sky,
The rain's bow,
The curl of a wave,
The sand's dune,
All contained in
The scoop of an eye's socket,
And the bowl of a skull.
A world cradled in
My electric palms

first published in Old stones and ancient bones: poems from the hollow hills, by Gordon Maclellan (me!)


and here is The Bone Pit, written as part of a narrative poem for Buxton Museum's Wonders of the Peak audio trail

THE BONE PIT

A drumming thunder of running hooves, a racing sweep over the hilltops.

Steaming breath, rolling eyes, the wind flare of mane.

The heart beats quicker, hooves before paws, before claws, before teeth.

         Remember those who have gone.

         Bone upon bone,

         Rattle and fall,

         Tooth and horn,

         Fang and jaw,

         Warm flesh, fur and feather all grow cold

         Together in the bone-pit darkness

And wait.

Wait for a pick, for a shovel and a gentle touch

To lift the darkness of 10,000 years.

10,000 years is not so long.

We can look up and out, beyond these Buxton walls

And see the hills the old animals saw.

The folded dales may remember them yet and

All those we have lost may

Still walk in the dreams the land is dreaming.

         Aurochs, giant deer, bear, lion, and mastodon,

         Remember those who have gone.

         Bone upon bone,

         Rattle and fall,

         Tooth and horn,

         Fang and jaw,

         Warm flesh, fur and feather all grow cold

         Together in the bone-pit darkness

Bone Detectives

Bone Detectives

March 2016

As part of my ongoing work with Buxton Museum and Art Gallery’s Collections in the Landscape project, I have been organising some events for British Science Week. Here, we’ll be becoming natural historians, working with the skills that the early collectors who set the Museum Collections in motion used as they foraged across the peaks, rummaging in bone-pits, excavating a bit too enthusiastically at times in barrows, and generally being inquisitive and over-excited. This will also be part of an underlying thread setting out to encourage a sense of investigation, to question what is appropriate when collecting, and to get people looking, thinking, talking to each other. In April, at Castleton Visitor Centre (details will follow here very soon!), we’ll be making small Cabinets of Curiosity to start some portable museums in motion

a beautiful replica lynx skull*

Discovering the secrets of the skulls

Here are the clues that will help you identify the mysterious skull you found on the beach or the bones on the moor, or perhaps here is simply the skills to exercise a fascination with ancient remains, old bones and hidden histories

When we examine a skull, we can tell a lot of an animal’s story: diet, behaviour, age, senses: the clues are all there for the skilled osteologist to read

These workshops will introduce participants to some of those skills, offering activities and inviting questions, setting an investigative procedure in motion so that even if we know what the animal is, we can still find out more

Materials:

there will be skulls to handle, gloves to wear (for the wary), plastic skulls as back-up, paper to draw on, pencils, etc to draw with, information sheets to work on and keep

PUBLIC EVENTS

Saturday 12th March: Bone Detectives, 1: at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA, Tel: 01629 533540. Sessions 10 - 12, 1 - 3

Free, no booking needed, children 7 years and under need to bring an adult and squeamish adults probably need to be accompanied too

These sessions are aimed at family groups

Wednesday 16th March: Bone Detectives, 2: at Buxton Museum and Art Gallery, Terrace Rd, Buxton, SK17 6DA, Tel: 01629 533540. 1 session: 10am - 1pm

This is a free session with activities and delivery aimed more at adults or young people of secondary school age

Again, this workshop is free and visitors are welcome to drop in. We recommend allowing an hour to work through activities but you are welcome to come for longer and spend more time handling, drawing and talking about the bones, skulls and shells we will have on display

Visitors are welcome to bring their own clean mystery finds with them - with no guarantee that we'll be able to solve the mystery but have confidence that we will be enthusiastic about them!

Our wonderful friends in the community group Stone and Water have achieved a grant from BSW towards the community participation in these events and to cover the costs of a similar session with a youth group. In fact, we’ve got 2 – so a local WATCH group is going to be going all skeletal and what will happen to Taxal Scouts, I almost dread to think.

These events are supported by BritishScience Week and are also part of Buxton Museum's Collections in theLandscape project

The replica skulls I'm using come from  an e-bay shop with the exquisite name CrimsonRichDesire. Go on. Indulge.

replica skulls come from Crimson Rich Desire

Skulls!

Book of the moment: Skulls

Skulls, an exploration of Alan Dudley's curious collection

Simon Winchester

Black Dog & Leventhal, 2012

ISBN-13: 978-1-57912-912-5

A beautiful book. It celebrates bone, with photographs that revel in the curve and the line, the sharp edges and deep shadows that make skulls so captivating.

Skulls is as rich and as stark as the bones it holds. There is minimal text. For each skull, we get the basic zoological information and that's it. But that's all that's needed. I find myself drawn in, turning pages, skeletal browsing and brooding a bit. The collection itself presented is intriguing. These are all from the collection of a single man. Alan Dudley has a collection of 2,000 skulls and a passion for collecting that eventually brought him into court with a handful of skulls that had slipped into his possession in breach of international and national law

A reminder not to lose one's own perspective perhaps. But then, open the book and revere the animals brought to you here, through the temples of their bones and be inspired.

 Natural History Book Shop - you could get a copy here

Black Dog and Leventhal - publishers

my own bones tend to end a bit more festive than the beauties in this book