6. Competitive Collecting and Suspicious Shipwrecks

Fingerprints Episode 6
The country’s first major art and antiquities collection now sits in the Ashmolean Museum. It reveals untold stories from the ancient world including shipwrecks, competitively collecting, underhand dealings and how classical art was used by aristocrats at the royal court to boost their status and standing. Join lecturer Alison Pollard, as she takes you on a journey which spans over 2000 years. Find a transcript of this episode here
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• Read about the Arundel marbles here

Speakers in this episode:

• Series host: Lucie Dawkins, Director & Producer, Ashmolean Museum
• Dr Alison Pollard, Lecturer in Classical Archaeology, University of Oxford
• Professor Peter Stewart, Director of the Classical Art Research Centre, University of Oxford
• Jaś Elsner, Professor of Classics and Art History, University of Oxford
• Phiroze Vasunia, Professor of Greek, UCL

About the Fingerprints podcast
Every object in the Ashmolean has passed from hand to hand to reach the Museum. In a new podcast, we uncover the invisible fingerprints left behind by makers, looters, archaeologists, soldiers, rulers, curators, and many more. These stories of touch reveal the ways in which the forces of conflict and colonialism have shaped Britain’s oldest Museum. Join the Ashmolean’s curators alongside artists, experts, and community members, for our new podcast: Fingerprints.
Fingerprints will be released on the Ashmolean’s website, on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts, weekly from 21 January 2022 until 25 February 2022.
Fingerprints is produced and hosted by Lucie Dawkins. Guests include Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of the Report on African Cultural Heritage, commissioned by Emmanuel Macron; Professor Dan Hicks, of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum; and Simukai Chigudu, one of the founding members of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
www.ashmolean.org/fingerprints

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