Human world
Please note: several galleries from the Ancient World are now closed to allow vital access to the Ancient Egypt gallery for its refurbishment.
The collection currently stands at over 30,000 items. Its core stems from Joseph Mayer's original gift in 1865. He purchased the well known Faussett and Rolfe collections of Anglo-Saxon material from Kent, and the Anderson collection of prehistoric pottery from Yorkshire. He also supported the work of local antiquarians and collectors acquiring important material from Meols, Wirral, and small groups from regional sites such as Lancaster.
The museum lost the bulk of its British archaeological ceramics in the 1941 bombing, including the Anglo-Saxon urns from the Faussett collection and the Bronze Age urns from Danby Moore in Yorkshire.
Take a look at some of the highlights of the Anglo-Saxon collection.
Roman pottery found by field archaeology at Halewood, Merseyside
There are approximately 6,000 items of British archaeology, including prehistoric pottery, flint and metalwork, Roman pottery and bronzes, Anglo-Saxon glass, metalwork, beads, bone, etc.
Fieldwork is starting to produce waterlogged material and palaeo-environmental evidence (which has conservation implications). There are in addition c 10,000 records of archaeological sites in the area with associated data and aerial photographs.
17th and 18th century ceramics from Buckley, North Wales
Local archaeological assemblages of post-medieval date have been acquired over the last 20 years from about 30 excavations in the Merseyside area. This work has been carried out by the North West Archaeological Trust, the Archaeological Survey of Merseyside (now the field archaeology unit) and other local bodies.
The collections are predominantly of pottery and include assemblages from 17th and 18th century kiln sites in North Wales and a late 18th century kiln site in Merseyside. There is also an important collection from a late 16th / early 17th century glass-producing site in south Lancashire.