Human Sciences Curator awarded Thuthuka Funding

Dr Ghilraen Laue, curator in the Human Sciences Department, has been awarded the sought-after Thuthuka research grant from the National Research Foundation. The grant of approximately R100,000 will allow Dr Laue to continue her research on the rock art of the Groot Winterhoek Mountains and the neighbouring Elandsberge, near Port Elizabeth. Dr Laue received her PhD in 2019 for her research on the rock art of this area. The grant will also allow Dr Laue to develop and implement educational and outreach programmes for the area.

Join us for a site visit to Sibhudu Shelter near Maidstone: Sunday 15th March 2020

Our second event of the archaeological year is a visit to Sibhudu Shelter inland of Maidstone (North Coast). Nick Conard and Manu Will of the University of Tübingen are excavating there in February and March 2020, so our visit allows us to see archaeology-in-action and to chat directly to the archaeologists involved.

Sibhudu is a well-known site containing Middle Stone Age deposits dating from about 30,000 to more than 100,000 years ago. Excavations there since 1998 have made a major contribution to our understanding of human lifeways and cognitive evolution. Heritage authorities are currently working on a nomination to declare Sibhudu one of South Africa’s World Heritage Sites, along with the sites Blombos, Diepkloof, Pinnacle Point, Klasies and Border Cave. This declaration will be framed as “The Emergence of Modern Humans: The Pleistocene occupation sites of South Africa World Heritage Site”.

If you find yourself fascinated by this time in our history – when the world was a very different place – then this excursion is for you!

Please RSVP by email (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) by the 11^th of March, if you would like to attend.

We will meet at 10.00am at the Usave Maidstone Grocery Store on the right-hand side of the R102 going north, shortly before the robot at the Noodesberg Road (R614) turnoff, Fairbreeze. 

Refreshing the Victorian Period Rooms

Recent visitors to the Museum may have noticed real people in the Victorian period room displays supplementing the usual mannequins. A number of visitors got quite a fright! Inandi Maree from the Exhibitions Department and Dr Ghilraen Laue, Curator in the Human Sciences Department, have been refreshing the displays in these period rooms. There are multiple challenges to updating the exhibits in these rooms. In the Apothecary Shop, for example, there are original medicine bottles, many of which are over 100 years old. Some of these bottles still have their original contents, including arsenic and other poisons! For safety, face masks are worn while in this room when bottles and cabinets are opened. In the coming weeks similar work will be done in the Blacksmith and Wainwright displays.