In 1970 the Vindolanda Trust was established with its founding aims for the archaeological research of the site, making the structures and artefacts available to the interested public, especially educational groups, and engage with people from all walks of life. Nearly fifty years after those aims were established making the artefacts and research available to the interested public has remained at the heart of everything we do at Vindolanda.
In 2010 we created our Twitter and Facebook accounts but it was not until 2014 that we started using them to proactively talk about our excavation programme. Up until 2014 news of our most recent finds came through press releases, displays within the museums and academic research reports. Over the last nine years the use both of Twitter and Facebook to deliver news of our latest discoveries has become an increasingly more important way of engaging with the public and indeed the press.
Sharing our excitement about our discoveries has not only helped inspire people to come and visit Vindolanda but there have been many other benefits too. In keeping with the Trusts original aims social media enables far more engagement with the public. The majority of the new finds that we have shared images of since 2014 are artefacts which are now part of our reserve collection in storage, the Vindolanda museum would need to be 10 times its existing size to display the entire collection, a collection which grows annually. Social media therefore gives some of our new finds a window to be on public display, the Trust Twitter feed has now become a five-year archive of some of the most recent reserve collection.
We are often surprised by the public reaction to our finds and that reaction can help inform which finds we add into our temporary display of recent finds at Vindolanda. From small sherds of pottery to large leather tent panels and a multitude of Roman shoes the public can make a personal connection to our collection. A cracked stone gaming board that was uncovered this year became our most popular social media post to date, being seen by 1 million people on our social media channels alone. The stone board is one of five to be found at Vindolanda, certainly not the biggest or best preserved but due to its popularity online it was picked up by local press and went on to feature in both the Smithsonian Magazine and Archaeology Magazine. As a result of the public reaction this artefact will certainly be in our new finds case in 2020 and hopefully has made many more people aware of our astonishing site. In 2016 the discovery of a complete wooden spoon was admired and discussed by so many people on social media that it is now proudly on permanent display in our new Wooden Underworld gallery at Vindolanda.
Another benefit to us from social media, which certainly was not our intention when we originally started releasing news and images of our finds, is that it opens dialogue about our collection between specialists around the world. We also have literally thousands of researchers helping us to identify comparable material culture or references or using our collection to inform others.
As an independent charitable trust social media is of course also marketing tool. It allows us to engage with people ‘from all walks of life’ across the world, many of whom are new audiences that were completely unaware that we existed. It does help inspire people to visit our site, make a donation towards the work which we do, as well as joining in our excitement at seeing of these artefacts and structures for the very first time in 2,000 years as crucially without those visits and donations we could not continue to excavate and research the site. We hope our social media channels will continue to grow but also continue to bring enjoyment to people who can’t physically get to visit our site or who have visited and want to keep in touch with our progress. Maybe one day Twitter might actually give us an official blue tick!
More June 2019 Newsletter Content
Learn about the educational programing of the AIA and what they can offer interested classicists.
Read about the divide - historical and constructed - between archaeology and classics.
Familiarize yourself with the new disability accomodations that will feature at the AIA/SCS joint annual meeting in D.C.
