LDJ Independent Historical Archivist

28/10/2019

New engraving collection delivered to the

25/09/2019

Happy Comic Book Day. Here is a sneak peek at a new collection I have just finished archiving and has now been sent off to a university Classics department in the UK. More info coming very soon!

“Happy . Here is a sneak peek at a new collection I have just finished archiving in the and has now been sent off to a university Classics department in the UK. More info coming very soon! ”

06/08/2019

Here is the beginnings to a side project I will be working on over the next 10 years or so

“Here is a sneak peek at the collection: Two issues of by that feature a classical theme on the cover.”

24/06/2019

You can read more about Señora Spencer in the book I worked on "AHL: 100 Years of Entertainment"

By film program curator Ruby Arrowsmith-Todd

28/05/2019

Check out this wonderful Lego interpretation of a Roman triumphal arch by Andy Beard who is a The University of Oklahoma alumnus in Classical Architecture, who contacted me to show me his Lego classical architecture creation.

His model is made entirely from parts from the 2007 LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle set (Set No. 5378) and I asked what his inspiration for this model was and he told me: “I just realized one day that the Harry Potter sets include pieces of architectural ornamentation that can be rearranged into Classical forms.”

This piece is wonderfully executed as it works within so many limitations to create such detail and is a great example of the recently coined term “Lego Classics” (see Jensen, Lego Classics: Serious or Superficial?, 2019: https://vimeo.com/321346707).

The Romans built triumphal arches to celebrate their victories in wars and the expansion of their empire and their triumphal marches would often wind their way through these buildings.

Thank you to Andy Beard for getting in contact with me to show me this great model of a Roman triumphal arch!

24/05/2019

Congratulations to Prof. Massimo Osanna on being re-appointed as Director General of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii (Pompeii - Parco Archeologico).

If you are in Sydney Australia you should go and meet Lego Classicists Massimo Osanna who is on permanent display as part of the Lego Pompeii exhibition at the University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum. What good timing that the announcement comes during Australia’s National Archaeology Week too!

In October Director General Massimo Osanna (Parco Arceologico di Pompei) was presented with his very own LEGO mini-fig at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding for our Pompeii Cast Project...

23/05/2019

A new Lego figure inducted into my hobby project Lego Classicists for National Archaeology Week.

This week is National Archaeology Week here in Australia which aims to increase public awareness of archaeology and Australian archaeology and archaeologists, both at home and abroad. So today, as part of this celebration, I have a very special new member joining the Lego Classicists family!

Here is Lego Rhianna Patrick. The real Rhianna is host of ABC Australia Radio “Can You Dig It” and along with Dr. Craig Barker (also in the Lego Classicists family) she breaks down the illusion of the “ivory tower” that can sometimes be associated with archaeology and the impression that the past that it digs up is boring or irrelevant to modern life, and she brings the amazing stories archaeology uncovers to a wider audience.

Yesterday I met with Dr. Barker to ask him to give Rhianna her Lego self on my behalf, so I’m sure we will see her and her Lego self together very soon!

So today, please join in and make Lego Rhianna feel very welcome in the Lego Classicist family in honour of National Archaeology Week!

More info here:
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/rhiannapatrick/bucket-list/9898920

21/05/2019

Today is the last day of MuseumWeek. All through the week, museums and organisations from across the world have come together on social media to celebrate Museum Week and its primary focus, Women in Culture. As part of this I have dedicated the entire week to their cause and highlighted seven female members of the Lego Classicists family who greatly inspire me!

On this last day I will be talking about Julie Inman Grant, the Australian eSafety Commissioner (Office of the eSafety Commissioner) because without her and her colleagues around the world making the internet safer, international social media events like , Safer Internet Day and our own would not be possible. A safer internet also allows museums to increasingly put their information and collections online, so we can all share them. The internet is like the Roman road system, which led to great freedom and expansion for the Romans, but was also a source of danger, so the Romans needed to guard their roads to protect their citizens.

Julie Inman Grant heads a dedicated team who work to make the internet as safe as possible. She is also a keen lover of museums and classics. Her grandmother was a Latin and Greek language teacher, and Ms. Grant studied Italian and has lived in Italy. She said “ancient (Roman) history, art, architecture, language, food have long been a passion of mine”. Julie Inman Grant inspires me because she and I have a similar origin story because we both grew up with strong women who put a love of history and the ancient world in our veins, and she now applies this understanding and knowledge from the ancient world to the very modern world of the internet and social media.

Over the past week, Museum Week has been a huge success, not only because it brought together so many museums across the world and celebrated the cultural and historical work we all do, but because in a very genuine way, it brought the demonstrably equal role of women’s cultural contribution and work to public attention, and focussed on it in one place. The event was vibrant, interactive and authentic and was co-ordinated by Benjamin Benita and a hard-working international team and sponsored by UNESCO, the CHANEL Foundation and The New York Times.

Thank you to Julie Inman Grant and her team and all the similar teams around the world whose work makes events like this possible and to the organisers and sponsors of Museum Week for giving us all the opportunity to be involved and to showcase such an array of important, vibrant work.

And thank you to all the women in the Lego Classicist family, whose brilliant work has been highlighted here this week!

Lego Julie Inman Grant was inducted into the Lego Classicists family in February, 2019.

16/05/2019

One of Lynette Jensen’s antique engraving collections, the Hermes Collection, has recently resulted in the discovery of the “Lost Nicholson Collection” of sculptures, through contact with University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre and its Beazley Archive.

“During my research about the Nicholson Hermes statue, which used to belong to University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum founder, Sir. Charles Nicholson, I discovered online that at the University of Oxford there were some old photographs of some of Nicholson’s other ancient marbles, that we had thought were destroyed when Nicholson’s English house burnt down in 1899. I had suspected that the marbles might still exist, and was delighted to discover these old, blurry pictures of them. When I contacted A/Prof. Peter Stewart, Director of the Classical Art Research Centre at Oxford, he told me that they had recently been accidentally found at Southend-on-Sea Borough Council where they belonged to the local Council, who hadn’t known what they were.” Jensen said.

After Jensen informed the Senior Curator, Dr. Jamie Fraser, of the Nicholson Museum of this discovery, it caused quite a stir at the University of Sydney and soon after he visited the newly found sculptures in the UK. Now, the “Lost Nicholson Collection”, along with the Nicholson Hermes and other marbles from Nicholson’s collection is being published by Prof. Hans Goette of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (who is also in the Lego Classicist family).

For the Nicholson Museum, this has been an important discovery and is a great success of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre and Lynette Jensen’s innovative research and it shows how new technology like the internet plays such an important role in modern ancient world scholarship. A lost collection has united two universities in different hemispheres, an English local Council and a German art historian. And it brought Nicholson’s “Lost Collection” back to light.

History and archaeology are a lot like a detective mystery, and like building with Lego, research is pieced together bit by bit!

From left, Director, Sydney University Museums, David Ellis; Lynette Jensen; Liam D. Jensen and Senior Curator Nicholson Museum, Dr. James Fraser.
Image © Nicholson Museum, The University of Sydney

Continuing on from yesterday's post for MuseumWeek as part of my official participation I am dedicating the entire week to their cause and highlighting seven female members of the Lego Classicists family who greatly inspire me!

(See last post here: https://www.facebook.com/LegoClassicists/photos/a.154733718294369/675591906208545):

One of Lynette Jensen’s antique engraving collections, the Hermes Collection, has recently resulted in the discovery of the “Lost Nicholson Collection” of sculptures, through contact with University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre and its Beazley Archive.

“During my research about the Nicholson Hermes statue, which used to belong to University of Sydney’s Nicholson Museum founder, Sir. Charles Nicholson, I discovered online that at the University of Oxford there were some old photographs of some of Nicholson’s other ancient marbles, that we had thought were destroyed when Nicholson’s English house burnt down in 1899. I had suspected that the marbles might still exist, and was delighted to discover these old, blurry pictures of them. When I contacted A/Prof. Peter Stewart, Director of the Classical Art Research Centre at Oxford, he told me that they had recently been accidentally found at Southend-on-Sea Borough Council where they belonged to the local Council, who hadn’t known what they were.” Jensen said.

After Jensen informed the Senior Curator, Dr. Jamie Fraser, of the Nicholson Museum of this discovery, it caused quite a stir at the University of Sydney and soon after he visited the newly found sculptures in the UK. Now, the “Lost Nicholson Collection”, along with the Nicholson Hermes and other marbles from Nicholson’s collection is being published by Prof. Hans Goette of the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut (who is also in the Lego Classicist family).

For the Nicholson Museum, this has been an important discovery and is a great success of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre and Lynette Jensen’s innovative research and it shows how new technology like the internet plays such an important role in modern ancient world scholarship. A lost collection has united two universities in different hemispheres, an English local Council and a German art historian. And it brought Nicholson’s “Lost Collection” back to light.

History and archaeology are a lot like a detective mystery, and like building with Lego, research is pieced together bit by bit!

From left, Director, Sydney University Museums, David Ellis; Lynette Jensen; Liam D. Jensen and Senior Curator Nicholson Museum, Dr. James Fraser.
Image © Nicholson Museum, The University of Sydney

01/05/2019

that we keep kitty litter at hand, to help with water absorption in case of emergency?
This is , an essential part in the NFSA disaster planning strategy, to protect our collection. We're sharing it to mark with Blue Shield Australia, Australian Society of Archivists, Society of American Archivists and all cultural institutions.
Check out our disaster handbook: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/guide/handbook/disaster

26/04/2019

I have just finished editing the academic talk about the serious use of Lego, “Lego Classics: Serious or Superficial?”. The talk was written and presented by independent scholar and curator Lynette Jensen (whose collections I archive), and presented earlier this year (7/2/2019) at the University of New England, AU, as the Plenary Session of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies Annual Conference.

The talk was introduced by Dr Clemens Koehn who said:

“Lynette Jensen is an independent scholar and curator who specialises in interpreting history through the visual image. Her curated collections of original historical engravings, sketches and photographs are in collections around the world including The University of Oxford, The British School at Athens, The University of Sydney, The University of New England, AU and the British School at Rome, the BSR.

Her recent research into the Nicholson Hermes sculpture helped uncover the location of Sir Charles Nicholson’s “Lost Collection” of antiquities, now located at Southend-on-Sea (Southend-on-Sea Borough Council) and previously thought to have been destroyed by fire in 1899. As a result, the Nicholson Hermes and the newly found collection are currently being studied by Prof. Hans Goette of the German Institute of Archaeology (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut).”
I hope you enjoy it!

LDJ Independent Historical Archivist Academic Video Series Presents: Plenary Session, Australasian Society for Classical Studies 40th Annual Conference Speaker/Author:…

24/04/2019

Disney's 101 Dalmatians press photos from the Greater Union collection in the AHL Historical Archive when I was the archivist there