Trowelblazers - Christian Maclaglan

She was "arguably the UK's first female archaeologist" according to Dr Murray Cook, who is leading a project to rediscover the broch she discovered and recorded in the 1870s. She is also one of the first to consider stratigraphy, and to draw cross sections of ruins, something that is absolutely basic to archaeological recording now. She was doing this five years before Pitt Rivers used the technique at Cranborne Chase, though he is generally credited with the introduction of the technique. She was, apparently, quite a talented artist, and left handed, as her right hand was affected by a bone disease.
The broch she recorded, at Livilands in Stirling, is thought to have been buried under garden landscaping.
The paper that Christian Maclaglan wrote, describing the broch, was not accepted by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland because she was only a lady associate of the Society, not a Fellow - and only men could become Fellows. The paper was only accepted when it had been transcribed by a man. The Society first admitted women as Fellows in 1901, the year of her death.
So she donated important pieces of her research, on other brochs and monuments as well as the one at Livilands, to the British Museum rather than the Scottish Society. This included all the rubbings she had made of carvings on standing stones.
She was born in 1811, and died in 1901.

Trowelblazers - Beatrice de Cardi

Beatrice de Cardi died on July 5th this year, aged 102, and at the end of her career she was the world's oldest practicing archaeologist, as she continued to write up her excavations and catalogue pottery until after her 100th birthday. Her Who's Who entry lists her hobbies as "keeping up with archeological research".
And what a life she had!
She was born in London in 1914, the daughter of a Corsican aristocrat and an American heiress of German origin, and became interested in archaeology when she attended lectures at University College London given by Sir Mortimer Wheeler.
She went to work with Mortimer Wheeler and his wife Tessa at Maiden Castle, where she worked on the classification of the pottery. After her graduation from university, Sir Mortimer Wheeler offered her a job as his secretary - he was then Keeper of the London Museum.
During the Second World War she was seconded to the Foreign Office, which sent her out to Chungking, China. She also visited India as part of her work there, and after the war she got a job at the Board of Trade in Delhi, and later Karachi. There she read an article about some previously unknown pottery from Quetta in Baluchistan, written by a young Stuart Piggott.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler was now Director General of Archaeology in India, and Beatrice persuaded him to lend her a jeep and an assistant, Sadar Din, to look for archaeological sites in Baluchistan.
Michael Wood the historian described her as "part Miss Marple and part Indiana Jones". Baluchistan was a wild and dangerous area, and she had to deal with bandits and wild animals during her time there, but she and Sadar Din located 47 archaeological sites, many of which contained the pottery style she named Quetta Ware, and dated to 4th - 3rd millenium BC.
Unrest in the region meant that she had to return to London, where she worked on archaeology uncovered by the Luftwaffe's bombing raids in the Second World War, but she returned to Baluchistan under her own steam in the 1960s.
In 1973 she helped to set up the national museum of Qatar, as director of an archaeological expedition sent by the British Museum. She had ten weeks to produce a report on Qatar from the Stone Age to the Oil Age and she later wrote a book on the archaeology of Qatar.

From her obituary in the Telegraph: "In 1989 Beatrice de Cardi was awarded the Al Qasimi Medal for archaeological services to Ras al-Khaimah, and in 1993 the Burton Memorial Medal by the Royal Asiatic Society. In June 2014, she was awarded the Gold Medal of the Society of Antiquaries of London “for distinguished services to archaeology”. She was a fellow of the British Academy and was appointed OBE in 1973."

Thoughts from a corner of Sweden: If the UK leaves Europe, where does that leave me ? (and the many other archaeologists in the same sinking boat)

Thoughts from a corner of Sweden: If the UK leaves Europe, where does that leave me ? (and the many other archaeologists in the same sinking boat)

Women Warriors Ethiopia 1936

In 1935 Italy, under Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia, and quickly took over the country. This is one of the Ethiopian troops defending her country.

Goodbye Garibaldi

Jerry Doyle, who played Michael Garibaldi in Babylon 5, has just been reported dead by the BBC. He was sixty.
I had no idea that he'd been a jet pilot before he became an actor.

The Bandit of Sherwood Forest

This is the 1946 swashbuckler with Cornel Wilde as the son of Robin Hood - and watching it has cleared up a false memory I had.
I thought I remembered a scene from the Richard Greene Robin Hood series, in black and white, in which Robin is captured and must fight a duel with (I thought) the Sheriff, but first he is kept in a cell for three days without food or drink, so the Sheriff is sure to win. During this time, Maid Marion (I thought) swings baskets of food and water to his cell window, so he isn't starved at all.
What I was actually remembering was this film, which is in glorious Technicolour (though I may have watched it in black and white, it's so long ago). It's Cornel Wilde in the cell, and it's Lady Catherine who swings baskets of food over to him - and he's fighting the Regent of England in a trial by combat, because William of Pembroke dearly wants to kill the boy himself.
And it occured to me that William of Pembroke, played by Henry Daniell, is probably meant to be William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, who was indeed Regent of England during the minority of King John's son Henry III (the boy king in this version has the most appalling pageboy wig). And William Marshal, historically speaking, was one of the good guys, and most unlikely to be plotting to kill the boy king and crown himself, while throwing out Magna Carta and banishing the Earl of Huntingdon (original Robin, Cornel Wilde's dad, who returns to the greenwood to fight tyranny).

And then I started thinking about all the ways the film could be made better than it is.
We start the film with lots of bowmen riding through the forest to a meeting with the Earl/Robin, including old friends Friar Tuck, Little John, Will Scarlet and Allan-a-dale. Earl Robin is about to attend a meeting at Nottingham Castle of the Regent's Council, and he fears for the future of the country.
There's one glaring omission in the meeting of old friends here - where's Marion?
And Earl Robin then rides to the castle alone.
This would not happen. Earls had a retinue to follow them everywhere. So if the film makers wanted to start with a bit of spectacle, why not start with Earl Robin and his retinue heading for the meeting, during which he discusses his worries with Marion and Young Robert (who in the film is in the North Country, who knows why? and is not recognised as Robin's son when he first meets the outlaws). Then, when the meeting goes badly and Robin is banished, he can go to the Queen's chambers to collect Marion, telling the Queen his plans as he does so, and leave the castle - and then collect all his old friends together in the greenwood. This would also get over the old "love/hate at first sight" plot line with Lady Catherine, because Young Robert would already know her from Court, and not try to sexually assault her in a humourous way the first time he meets her in the greenwood when she and the Queen have fled the castle.
But at least the film did have two named women talking to each other, and not about a man, and at least Lady Catherine (Anita Louise) made decisions and didn't just hang around waiting to be rescued.
The fight scenes weren't bad, as long as you accept fencing with broadswords. Cornel Wilde was actually an Olympic class fencer, and you could see they were going for the Errol Flynn 1938 Robin Hood film look, with fencing shadows on the walls and a Korngold-style musical score. Cornel Wilde had a cheery grin when he fenced, but he wasn't Errol Flynn.

Suffragette on a Scooter

Here's Lady Florence Norman, who's stopped to pose for a photo on her way to work in 1916. She was a member of the Liberal Women's Suffrage Union - her husband was a Liberal MP - and the Women's Liberal Federation. She also ran a hospital in France during the First World War, for which she was awarded the Mons Star. At this point, she was an office supervisor.
I'd love to have a scooter like that!