Written by Dave Parkhill
Assistant Collection Manager, Archaeology, Cultures and Histories Program
In 2015 the Queensland Museum commenced an expansion of the Secret Sacred Room at the South Bank campus. As part of this process, the majority of archaeological artefacts remaining at South Bank were relocated to the Queensland Museum Annexe at Hendra. The archaeological objects remaining at Southbank consisted mainly of the antiquities collection. From terracotta lamps to glass beakers; from mummified birds to spearheads, the antiquities collection is comprised of over 950 pieces, and includes artefacts from cultures as geographically and chronologically diverse as Egypt, Rome, Britain, Greece, and Cyprus. Continue reading Classical antiquities find a modern home→
Written by Senior Curator of Archaeology, Dr Brit Asmussen, Curator of archaeology Nick Hadnutt and Principal Curator Science and Technology, Dr Geraldine Mate
Archaeology staff at the Queensland Museum (QM) has taken the opportunity to create a program for National Archaeology Week (NAW) for many years. National Archaeology Week was born in 2001, and aims to increase public awareness of Australian archaeology and the work of Australian archaeologists both at home and abroad, and to promote the importance of protecting Australia’s unique archaeological heritage. Held in the third week of May, this exciting nationwide program of events and activities included public lectures, seminars, exhibits, demonstration excavations and displays. Continue reading National Archaeology Week at Queensland Museum→
Queensland Museum is the custodian of a significant and extensive archaeological collection. The collection is so large it is divided into categories to enable better management, access and the application of expert knowledge to the collections. All together, these various collections comprise of hundreds of thousands of artefacts and occupy many square meters of storage. The collections are divided as follows:Continue reading Collecting the Deep Past: Queensland Museum’s archaeology collection.→
Written by Dave Parkhill, Assistant Collection Manager (Archaeology).
In 2015 the Queensland Museum commenced a rehousing of the Archaeological Collection, which includes almost 1000 pieces of antiquities. This grouping includes such diverse items as Roman lamps, Greek glassware and Egyptian funeral objects. This was seen as a perfect opportunity to research material that had been donated decades ago and to ensure the information we had in our database was as accurate as we could make it.
One task involved researching the donation history of objects gifted by Ken Jackson, who collected them whilst on active service with the 2/9th Infantry Battalion of the Australian Army, during the Second World War.
Whenever you go into the field, the preparation seems to take over, until that moment when you get out of the truck at the site and breathe in the air. All of a sudden, the excitement kicks in, the nervousness about what you’ll find and the sense of freedom of the outdoors. There is a true delight in that feel of the sun or the chill of a cold dawn in the field, even the thrill of rain running down the back of your neck between the hat the collar (although not if it goes on for too long!). Continue reading Archaeology in the field – reflecting on the Mill Point experience of lantana, laughs & lake.→
Written by Senior Curator, Social History, Mark Clayton.
At 4 a.m. on the morning of February 5, 1916, Mr W.J. McLaughlan who was on sentry duty on the beach at North Fremantle, noticed in the dim light an object which he at first took to be a snake, but which on closer examination proved to be a remarkably elongated fish of a bright silvery colour.
The Keeper of Biology at the Western Australian Museum, Mr W Alexander, soon identified this as a new species which he described in detail – four months later – in a paper read before a meeting of that state’s Royal Society. He proposed then to name the new species Evoxymetopon anzac, sp nov., explaining that this was “specially suitable for a fish found in Australian waters and nearly related to famous Frost-fish (Lepidopus caudatus) so well known in New Zealand.(1)
Related to the scabbardfish, Evoxymetopon anzac was the first species named after the – now – famous expeditionary force.
With the vantage of hindsight, and a century of liberal thinking, using the name ‘Anzac ‘to describe a new fish species might seem appropriate to us when in fact it could have been received as inappropriate and possibly even sacrilegious back then, especially given the prevailing legal, social and military tensions of that time.
A relatively new term then used mostly by military personnel and only reverentially, by civilians, the scientific community’s appropriation of the term ‘Anzac’ was – up until then – without precedent.
Since the first national Anzac Day commemoration had occurred some weeks prior to his Royal Society address, Alexander could not have been ignorant of the words sacredness, or the mounting media calls for its use to be safeguarded. Already, by May 1916, a regulation had been passed (under the War Precaustions Act), “making it an offence for any person to use, for the purposes of any trade, business, calling, or profession, the word “Anzac,” or any word resembling it.” Initially intended to discourage the word’s commercial exploitation, these punitive provisions were progressively extended after the war to encompass a much broader range of potentially inappropriate uses.
In short time ‘Anzac’ became one of the few words in the English language ever to have been afforded legal protection, and it was here in Queensland that the Regulation’s legal force was first tested (the newly completed Anzac Memorial Church in Indooroopilly being given a Prime Ministerial reprieve, on the basis that its foundation stone had been inscribed prior to the Regulation’s passage).
With considerable foresight the Regulation’s authors had adequately anticipated and provided for Anzac parks, streets, biscuits and cottages, all of which were within the realms of past and popular experience, Evoxymetopon anzac’s arrival from left of field however would have been difficult to foresee, or prevent. While provision had already been made within the Regulation for trademarks, the naming of species was typically regulated by peak international bodies which operated outside the Commonwealth’s jurisdiction.
If the term Anzac could be appropriated for one new species, then conceivably it could be re-used over and again for any number of other species (or genus)? Which is exactly what occurred.
Alexander’s paper had no sooner been published when, in 1919 on the other side of the world, French arachnologist Raymond Comte de Dalmas described a new ground spider genus (found in Australia and New Zealand) which he named Anzacia.
Anzac variants may well have been applied often since then, the term having even been used to describe insects (Anzac bipunctatus) and plants (the cultivar Callistemon citrinus having been termed ‘White Anzac’).
The cultivar Callistemon citrinus, otherwise known as White Anzac
Queensland Museum staff have also played a part in helping to sustain this century-old practise, ABRIS Research Fellow Michael Rix having described – in 2006 – a tiny spider which he named Flavarchaea anzac….
“The specific epithet refers to Australia’s national day of wartime commemoration, ‘Anzac Day’ (annually on 25 April). This date remembers and honours all Australians who have served and died in war, and originated after Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (‘Anzac’) soldiers landed at the Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey, on 25 April 1915. The first specimen of this species (QMB S66839) was collected on Anzac Day 2001.”
We may not remember them, as we do those other Anzacs, yet still their numbers grow.
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