PITT RIVERS MUSEUM
by Michelle Bienias
Dr. Karl Harrison of Oxford University has produced a 29 panorama virtual tour of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, a museum devoted to archaeology and evolutionary anthropology. (This is only one part of a large and incredible project covering many aspects of the historic city of Oxford, ‘Virtual Tour of Oxford'.)
Dr. Harrison had designed a 3D map of the museum from which one can jump into one of three floors and select a pano, which will open in a new window and is scaleable to fullscreen size.
Lt.-General Pitt Rivers, a collector of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, founded the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1884 when he gave his collection to Oxford University. The General’s founding gift contained more than 18,000 objects but the museum now has more than half a million, many donated by early anthropologists and explorers. Today the Museum is an active teaching department of the University of Oxford.
The museum displays are arranged according to type -- such as musical instruments, weapons, jewellery and tools -- which has the advantage of allowing the viewer to see and understand how different ages approached and solved similar problems, and how these objects ‘evolved’ over time.
Some objects of note:
The Court – Ground Floor
Behind the totem pole is an ancient Egyptian boat, likely 12th Dynasty. Models such as this one were often placed in early Middle Kingdom tombs to provide for the deceased in the afterlife. And on this floor one can also find the most popular exhibit in the museum, the Head Hunters tropies.
Lower Gallery – 1st Floor
Opposite the Benin case is a flat brooch of silver, edged with small silver balls and green and blue enamel from Kabyle or Shawia in Algeria.
Upper Gallery – 2nd Floor
Here lie a series of metal maces that are original Pitt Rivers objects. The shields display contains ancient shields up to a modern police riot shield in clear bulletproof plastic.
Dr. Harrison says this is his first tour produced using the Canon 10D online. “It was hard to do, the displays are very close and it was very dark. I shot nearly everything at 3 secs at F5.6. I'm impressed that the panoramas were noise free.” Harrison has also written up a tutorial explaining his workflow with the Canon 10D and Sigma 8mm that is well worth a read.
He also points out that the museum is central to the second book of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and was in an Inspector Morse murder story line.
 Read about Dr. Karl Harrison's gigantic Oxford project in 'Up Down and All Round Oxford, England', also in this issue.
Note: Thanks to the Pitt Rivers Museum website for many of the details in this article.
Email :
karl.harrison@chemistry.oxford.ac.uk
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