ITP Diary 5th September 2014: Constantinos Vasiliadis

Hello everyone,

This is our 3rd day in the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (TWAM) in Newcastle! Although we have a great time here with Yu Miao, Marwa and Fatih, we already miss our friends from the ITP and Emma Croft who accompanied us in here.

The city is really great, with many historic buildings in the center and the river Tyne with its amazing bridges. This Sunday 07/09/2014, the city organizes the Great North Run which is the world’s most popular half marathon. So many events and concerts take place these days in here.

 

Today with Jackie Bland, we‘ve met the Director of TWAM Iain Watson with whom we had a really warm conversation about the mission and the objectives of the Museum. It was interesting to know about the management and the funding of this really big Institution in Newcastle.

Later we ‘discover’ a new world in the Museum storerooms, in Discovery basement. We were surprised by the huge collection of  ethnographic material, stuffed animals, minerals and fossils. A second museum, under the Museum!

The lunch was followed by a nice trip with Helen to the South Shields where we visited the archaeological site of Arbeia. Arbeia was a Roman fort, settled in the mouth of Tyne River to the North Sea, to guard the sea route to Hadrian’s Wall. The first excavations started in 1870s but since then modern excavations take place, revealing parts of the fort. There, we had the opportunity to visit the small but very nice Museum, to explore the excavation and see the amazing reconstructed buildings.

Constantino Vasiliadis – Greece