Visited the Harris Museum and Art Gallery on Wednesday, it's our nearest (relatively large) gallery and I do like going. The last exhibition I went to see was 'Fairy-tales' it was fabulous, lots of old children's books and the sketches for them. This time I wanted to see their newer textile exhibition on embellished fabrics. My favourite piece was the Newspaper dress, apparently you could buy prints on fabric as well as on paper. This one was for a fancy dress party in 1897- but what a brilliant idea! Political, topical and different to everyone else's. Genius!
However I did go with the History Society at college (so it wasn't pretty dresses all afternoon) but I find out something very interesting:
'Horris' the Poulton/ Carleton/ Highfurlong elk. A you can probably imagine, he's quite old. There haven't been any elks in Britain since the last ice age, around 12000 years ago and Horris is 11600 years old. So he's doing pretty well! He was found in the 1970's in a site that is actually opposite college. The reason this elk is so very important is that he is the first evidence of 'Hunger Gathers' hunting in the North West. Poor Horris was hunted before he died, with harpoons (well the weapons look like mini harpoons) and various blunt objects. On the plus side he wasn't caught however he probably died from his injuries and the hunter gathers didn't eat. I thought this was all fascinating! If you want to find out more, Google Poulton Elk and there's plenty to read or visit the Gallery- I think he's being taken off display soon to become interactive soon but I'm not sure when! The Harris Museum and Art Gallery could tell you if you emailed/ phoned them. It was a really good afternoon in all!
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