Alice
Alice Lowson
I am..
27 and an Archaeology MA graduate. My first ambition was to be a time traveller but since discovering that this is currently not a viable career option I have settled on Archaeology. Whilst my first degree was in History, I find the immediacy of working with the physical products of different peoples, places and times more rewarding.
How I ended up at RAMM….
I came to RAMM in the last few months of my MA hoping to gain some practical experience of the museum sector and working with archaeological finds.
What I do at RAMM
I volunteer with the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) which records archaeological artefacts found by members of the public, and the Museums Ethnology Department. A lot of my work involves updating the World Cultures website or recording recent archaeological discoveries onto the PAS national database. I also take part in Finds Days. These are events in which members of the public are invited to bring archaeological artefacts they have found out walking, or in their gardens, to be identified and recorded by the PAS.
I like working with RAMM because…..
The people are friendly and the work is interesting. I feel very privileged to get a closer experience than most with such a variety of archaeological artefacts, and all of them recent discoveries! Its exciting work and it’s a real education in the process of artefact identification and recording. I loath any kind of work that seems pointless and the work I do here and the museum and with the PAS is anything but. Both the museum and the PAS focus on what professional and academic archaeology too often ignore: the public. The past belongs to us all and everyone can benefit from learning about and discussing who we are, where we come from, and what the world might look like through someone else’s eyes.
