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  • Worcester College
    Oxford OX1 2HB

Katharina Ulmschneider

In the opening decades of the twentieth century, Germany was at the cutting edge of arts and humanities scholarship across Europe. However, when many of its key thinkers--leaders in their fields in classics, philosophy, archaeology, art... more
In the opening decades of the twentieth century, Germany was at the cutting edge of arts and humanities scholarship across Europe. However, when many of its key thinkers--leaders in their fields in classics, philosophy, archaeology, art history, and oriental studies--were forced to flee to England following the rise of the Nazi regime, Germany's loss became Oxford's gain.

From the mid-1930s onwards, Oxford could accurately be described as an "ark of knowledge" of western civilization: a place where ideas about art, culture, and history could be rescued, developed, and disseminated freely. The city's history as a place of refuge for scientists who were victims of Nazi oppression is by now familiar, but the story of its role as a sanctuary for cultural heritage, though no less important, has received much less attention.

In this volume, the impact of Oxford as a shelter, a meeting point, and a center of thought in the arts and humanities specifically is addressed, by looking both at those who sought refuge there and stayed, and those whose lives intersected with Oxford at crucial moments before and during the war. Although not every great refugee can be discussed in detail in this volume, this study offers an introduction to the unique conjunction of place, people, and time that shaped Western intellectual history, exploring how the meeting of minds enabled by libraries, publishing houses, and the University allowed Oxford's refugee scholars to have a profound and lasting impact on the development of British culture. Drawing on oral histories, previously unpublished letters, and archives, it illuminates and interweaves both personal and global histories to demonstrate how, for a short period during the war, Oxford brought together some of the greatest minds of the age to become the custodians of a great European civilization.
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' ....This volume of 37 papers brings together a truly international group of pre-eminent specialists in the field of Celtic art and Celtic studies. It is a benchmark volume the like of which has not been seen since the publication of... more
' ....This volume of 37 papers brings together a truly international group of pre-eminent specialists in the field of Celtic art and Celtic studies. It is a benchmark volume the like of which has not been seen since the publication of Paul Jacobsthal's Early Celtic Art in 1944. .... With its broad geographical scope, this volume offers a timely opportunity to re-assess contacts, context, transmission and meaning in Celtic art for understanding the development of European cultures, identities and economies in pre- and proto-history.
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"Hitler will have my papers destroyed" Professor Paul Jacobsthal was a prominent and influential German archaeologist whose world was turned upside down when Hitler came to power. Jacobsthal fell foul of the Nazis because he was Jewish,... more
"Hitler will have my papers destroyed"

Professor Paul Jacobsthal was a prominent and influential German archaeologist whose world was turned upside down when Hitler came to power. Jacobsthal fell foul of the Nazis because he was Jewish, and because he wrote about one of the politically most dangerous topics in archaeology - Early Celtic Art. Jacobsthal fled to Oxford, where he found refuge at Christ Church - but his troubles were not over. Based on thousands of newly discovered letters, Sally Crawford and Katharina Ulmschneider uncover the fascinating story of one man's experience of persecution, exile and starting again. This is a war story you won't read in the history books.
In the Asian and European crossroads gallery, on the first floor of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the visitor is greeted by a large, Chinese, pottery camel. The braying camel stands proudly in a display cabinet with a second, much... more
In the Asian and European crossroads gallery, on the first floor of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the visitor is greeted by a large, Chinese, pottery camel. The braying camel stands proudly in a display cabinet with a second, much smaller, camel and other artefacts symbolic of the travel and transport connections between East Asia and the West along the ancient Silk Roads. Modestly labelled ‘Model of a camel, Tang Dynasty, China, soft whiteware, painted. Baxandall loan, EALI891.1’, there is, however, much more to this camel than initially meets the eye. Though there was no record of it in the Ashmolean archives, the camel was once the property of refugee academic Professor Paul Jacobsthal. In this article, the forgotten history of the object and the owner who brought it to Oxford is traced. This history offers a timely insight into the links between Oxford and its WWII refugee academic community, as well as reminder that the legacy of those who found refuge in Oxford is in danger of...
Archaeologists often ignore the presence of children as a contributing factor in the archaeological record. However, recent analysis of a number of glass plate and film photographs taken by archaeologists at the end of the nineteenth... more
Archaeologists often ignore the presence of children as a contributing factor in the archaeological record. However, recent analysis of a number of glass plate and film photographs taken by archaeologists at the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century shows that children were often incorporated into the photograph, either deliberately or inadvertently. These images provide not just a record of ancient sites and monuments, but also of the many local children who appear in the photographs. The children recorded by archaeologists offer an insight into children, their childhoods, their freedoms, and their place in society across a range of cultures in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, as well as raising questions about how archaeologists ‘saw’ the human subject in photographs where monuments and sites were the object.
In this project we are investigating the requirements to ease interdisciplinary collaboration between computer graphics researchers and heritage-related researchers who work with shared graphics-related datasets. We postulate that most... more
In this project we are investigating the requirements to ease interdisciplinary collaboration between computer graphics researchers and heritage-related researchers who work with shared graphics-related datasets. We postulate that most challenges can be overcome by ensuring that datasets (irrespective of discipline) are captured, processed and disseminated in ways that accommodate the needs of as many disciplines as possible – making the datasets more useful and more usable. This is not to say that a union of all discipline methodologies is required, but instead: we deem it necessary to identify what changes are feasible in existing (discipline-centric) practices to maximise the benefits, while limiting resource costs. The purpose of this paper is to begin this conversation, present our project, preliminary results and where the project will go next. We also propose the outline of an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewing framework that can be used across disciplines.
Abstract The Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) is a new database of over 10,000 lantern slide and glass plate negative photographic images. These images derive from Oxford University teaching collections brought together between... more
Abstract The Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) is a new database of over 10,000 lantern slide and glass plate negative photographic images. These images derive from Oxford University teaching collections brought together between c. 1880 and 1910. Although they were intended to be used for teaching in a variety of academic disciplines, none of which focused on children or childhood, nonetheless these images provide a useful new resource for an interdisciplinary study of global childhood at the turn of the twentieth century.
This article concentrates on determining some of the areas of debate in the Anglo-Saxon settlement hierarchy, reviews current approaches, and suggests which areas may warrant exploration in the future. The picture of social hierarchy... more
This article concentrates on determining some of the areas of debate in the Anglo-Saxon settlement hierarchy, reviews current approaches, and suggests which areas may warrant exploration in the future. The picture of social hierarchy being closely reflected in the archaeological record holds. One of the most important changes that have been recognized in the mid Saxon period is the great expansion in different settlement and site types. Social ranking may not have been the only factor influencing and shaping the mid Saxon settlement hierarchy. The current picture gained from archaeological and literary sources would suggest that, towards the late Saxon period, social hierarchy was once more clearly reflected in the settlement record, with kings visibly wielding a much tighter control over the landscape, economy, and people. At the other end of the hierarchy, this would also appear to hold true for the peasant class.
Colleagues who find the current climate inhibiting to pure scholarship and authors eager to see their name in print should read this: an ultimately uplifting account of Jacobsthal's struggle to establish one of the foundations of... more
Colleagues who find the current climate inhibiting to pure scholarship and authors eager to see their name in print should read this: an ultimately uplifting account of Jacobsthal's struggle to establish one of the foundations of European archaeology at a time of grave political persecution. Not the least of the achievements of this paper is the definitive rehabilitation of the lost co-author ofEarly Celtic Art, Eduard Neuffer, whose name never appeared on the cover and whose contribution was perforce unrecognised.
Professor Paul Jacobsthal was one of several eminent archaeologists to be interned on the Isle of Man. His report on his internment experience, written up shortly after his release and widely circulated, is one of the best surviving... more
Professor Paul Jacobsthal was one of several eminent archaeologists to be interned on the Isle of Man. His report on his internment experience, written up shortly after his release and widely circulated, is one of the best surviving personal testimonies of the event. Recent work on Jacobsthal’s archives deposited at the University of Oxford has now revealed the original, personal diary he kept during his internment on which the later report was based. In addition, an early, unfinished and unpublished autobiography has also come to light. These discoveries allow a reconsideration of Paul Jacobsthal’s internment report and his motivations in writing it.
It is difficult to remember that only twenty years ago we did not know the whereabouts of the wic sites documented for the mid-Anglo-Saxon period at London and York. Both of those are now well known, and this book focuses on a concomitant... more
It is difficult to remember that only twenty years ago we did not know the whereabouts of the wic sites documented for the mid-Anglo-Saxon period at London and York. Both of those are now well known, and this book focuses on a concomitant development in research, the investigation of the nature of exchanges and of inland distribution of goods in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries. The main topic is sites that have been recognized from the large amounts of metalwork, especially coins, that have come from them, mostly because of reports made by responsible metal detectorists. The combined work of numismatists, fieldworkers and finds specialists is showing both the range of material and the challenges in its interpretation, the latter introduced in a characteristically insightful essay by James Campbell. As in any compendium, some contributors are updating work on which they have already published, while others are presenting summaries for the first time. Particularly welcome in this book are chapters on Continental developments, though these raise the problem of even coverage some countries do not allow metal detecting, and this is bound to affect the level of site identification. Equally, preservation factors vary widely, and the wholesale removal of Dutch terps for manure in the nineteenth century may mean that a pattern of development along the Low Countries coast will never be postulated with as much confidence as may be possible for the east coast of England. At times, the amount of new information can be overwhelming. 1066 And All That-siyle examination questions begin to form: 'Distinguish carefully between Barham, Bawsey and Brandon, but not between Coddenham, Congham and Cottam.' A real question, however, is whether Cottam can or should be distinguished: one of the few 'prolific' or 'productive' sites excavated, it may be showing that most of these places are not significantly different from others that happen not to have produced so much metalwork. Similarly, Brandon raises the question of our ability to distinguish places affected by having a significant church in them. Nor do I feel that I understand why Essex does not have more of these sites, especially now that one has been identified in Kent, at Hollingbourne. At present, however, it seems that the Thames estuary and river valley may have operated differently from the East Anglian, Lindsey/Mercian and south Northumbrian kingdoms. The analysis of the Seine Valley is particularly important in this respect, but is a case where absence of metal detectorist reports may be a biasing factor. Common themes to emerge are the importance of overland routes as well as of rivers and estuaries; the economic role of the Church; and that markets were developing at sites which had mostly had no early Anglo-Saxon antecedents. Some marketing may have pre-existed the recently identified Charnwood Forest pottery may be evidence of that but essentially a new system or systems emerged in the seventh and eighth centuries using sites which all but disappeared in the ninth and tenth. An impressive range of contributions to the study of these developments has been brought together in this very well-edited and timely book.
Archives form a valuable but under-researched resource for mapping the development of prehistoric archaeology as a discipline in post-war Europe. New work on the previously un-catalogued archives of Professor Paul Jacobsthal at the... more
Archives form a valuable but under-researched resource for mapping the development of prehistoric archaeology as a discipline in post-war Europe. New work on the previously un-catalogued archives of Professor Paul Jacobsthal at the Institute of Archaeology, Oxford, exemplify the opportunities offered by archival research. Here, we focus on the correspondence between Professor Jacobsthal of Marburg University, who sought refuge in Oxford before the war, and his colleague, Professor Merhart, who remained in Germany. The surviving personal correspondence between Germany and Oxford from 1936 to 1957 illustrates the complexities, uncertainties, and challenges to personal and academic identities in the aftermath of the war, and show how the individual responses of archaeologists to their personal experiences impacted on the directions taken by archaeological scholarship in Europe and beyond after the war.
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Exhibition Book and Catalogue, OCAT Beijing, China 15 Sept 2017- 31 Dec 2017
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Exhibition Book and Catalogue, OCAT Beijing, China 15 Sept 2017- 31 Dec 2017
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The Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) is a new database of over 10,000 lantern slide and glass plate negative photographic images. These images derive from Oxford University teaching collections brought together between c. 1880... more
The Historic Environment Image Resource (HEIR) is a new database of over 10,000 lantern slide and glass plate negative photographic images. These images derive from Oxford University teaching collections brought together between c. 1880 and 1910. Although they were intended to be used for teaching in a variety of academic disciplines, none of which focused on children or childhood, nonetheless these images provide a useful new resource for an interdisciplinary study of global childhood at the turn of the twentieth century.
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