These include a Cypriote jug given by the son of the first Vice-Chancellor, and gifts by former Professors in thedepartments of Agricultural Botany, Chemistry and Microbiology. A fine small Attic amphora, nowrestored, was bought in a Red Cross jumble sale as a boxful of thirty-four fragments, and presented to theMuseum in that condition. Innkeeper's Diary, who bought it in an antique shop in Hove for sixpence. This is the main reason for the exceptionally fine collection of South Italian wares, based on private collections made in the 19th century by various local personages and bequeathed to the town. This jug also features in the Museum's entry in The Times 1990 Museums Guide.
Significant purchases are no longer practicable.
The last was made, with a special grant from the University, in 1980, when a fitting memorial was found to Annie Ure, a Boeotian lekane of the type on which, almost fifty years previously, she had published a definitive article. The Museum is used as a research resource by scholars all over the world. It is also used in teaching our own students, and increasingly as a source for teaching classical civilisation to groups from local schools. In style and presentation, the Museum is still very much as it was when it was given its present home in 1957, and when Annie Ure left it in 1976. The next stage, we hope, if funds can be obtained, will be to redesign the exhibition, incorporating textual and visual material to enhance the general public's appreciation and understanding of the collection.