page_title: Great North Museum: Hancock
section_title: Collections
hierarchical_section_title: Great North Museum: Hancock / Collections
caption_attribution_description: English: African Elephant (full size cast) at the Hancock Museum, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.
context_page_description: The Great North Museum: Hancock is a museum of natural history and ancient civilisations in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.
  The museum was established in 1884 and was formerly known as the Hancock Museum. In 2006 it merged with Newcastle University's Hatton Gallery to form the Great North Museum. The museum reopened as the Great North Museum: Hancock in May 2009 following a major extension and refurbishment of the original Victorian building.
  The museum and most of its collections are owned by the Natural History Society of Northumbria, and it is managed by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums on behalf of Newcastle University.
context_section_description: Among the Museum's permanent residents are a life-size cast of an African elephant; the Egyptian mummy Bakt-en-Hor (previously known as Bakt-hor-Nekht); a full size replica of a T-Rex skeleton; and Sparkie, Newcastle's famous talking budgie, who was stuffed after his death in 1962 and is now the subject of a new opera by Michael Nyman.
  The full size cast of an African Elephant was built in the Living Planet gallery. The model was crafted by Zephyr Wildlife, who took a cast from an actual stuffed elephant at a museum in Bonn in Germany. To get the elephant into the museum a crane, from Bel Lift Trucks, had to be used. The full size model of a T-Rex dinosaur has been shipped from Canada, where it was built by a company called Research Casting International. It forms part of the display known as the Fossil Stories gallery. The T-Rex model was one of the first items to be placed in the new museum, due to its size.
  Other exhibitions include 'Hadrian's Wall' looking at Roman life in the north of England, 'Natural Northumbria' focusing on the wildlife found in the northeast, 'Ancient Egypt' looking at the Ancient Egyptians and featuring the museum's two mummies, 'Ice Age to Iron Age' detailing the history of the British Isles over the past 12,000 years, 'World Cultures' featuring artifacts and displays from cultures across the globe, 'The Shefton Collection' with one of the most detailed collections of Greek artifacts in the UK and 'Explore' which is a more hands-on area of the museum and features regular interactive sessions.
  There were live animals on display but these have now been withdrawn, as well as a conference area for corporate events and a fully provisioned learning suite for school visits.
  The museum was entered into the 'long list' for the 2010 Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries.
caption: Elephant display.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2011:02:16 16:46:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5746", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "640", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:02:16 16:46:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:02:16 16:46:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "125/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "31/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2592", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1944", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3202", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "11520", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1944000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}