Introducing The Finds Liaison Officers

I am both fortunate and very privileged to be the Finds Liaison Officer for Devon.

- Lucy Shipley

Finds Liaison Officer for Devon

It’s a huge county and a beautiful one, but I’m based centrally at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) in Exeter. I work there for two days in the middle of the week, and usually do an additional half day at home. I have the fun of going out all round the county to meet detectorists at clubs and run a series of museum-based Finds Days in Torquay, Kingsbridge and Plymouth. I love getting out and about meeting people and really enjoy my occasional visits to rallies when I get to get muddy!

How and why did I get started in archaeology?

I’ve wanted to be an archaeologist from the age of about three or four – I remember being fascinated by a children’s book on the Ice Age and was thrilled to see the excavation of the West Runton mastodon as a child. I was a very geeky teenager and read the Renfrew and Bahn archaeology textbook cover to cover every year during my summer holidays – I couldn’t wait to get to university and finally study the subject. I did a BA, an MA then a PhD at the University of Southampton and focused on the Etruscans, a group of Iron Age communities from central Italy. This meant regular trips to Rome and working just outside Siena every summer – a hard life!

What is my greatest achievement in archaeology?