Dr Helen Wickstead MCIfA FSA
Faculties, departments and locations
- Kingston School of Art
- Faculty of Health, Science, Social Care and Education
- Department of Creative Industries
- Department of Applied and Human Sciences
- School of Creative and Cultural Industries
- School of Life Sciences, Pharmacy and Chemistry
Senior Lecturer and Course Director
- Email:
- [email protected]
About
Helen is a museum historian and archaeologist who unearths the histories of neglected, discarded, and stigmatized collections. She was educated at University College London where she completed a PhD on Bronze Age ruins. She has excavated sunken boats, prehistoric megaliths, Sudanese pyramids, Bohemian ritual enclosures, and modern rubbish tips. She is the founder and Director of Recycle Archaeology, a company discovering new social uses for deselected archaeological artefacts that works with schools, charities, urban farms and museums.
Helen's latest work is a study of the British Museum's Secretum. Previous publications investigated men-only clubs and museums, concrete megaliths, the Cult of Kata, goat-boy mythology in London suburbia, archaeology’s lost Eolithic era and the cultures of collecting eoliths and figure stones. She wrote the world's first dedicated study of Soho Bibles, uncovering how obscene books were smuggled into the British Museum's Library by renegade curators. Her current research revealing the Secretum’s secret history is soon to be published by Reaktion Books.
Qualifications
- M.A. Archaeology, University College London
- PhD. Archaeology, University College London
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries
- Member of the Chartered Institute of Archaeologists
Domains
Publications
Supermarket ruins: exploring heritage through visual storytelling
Copsey, Laura, Perry, Sara, Simandiraki-Grimshaw, Anna and Wickstead, Helen, 2026, Journal of Illustration, Accepted/In press
Dawn stones
Daniels, Richard and Wickstead, Helen, 2025, Occultaria of Albion: The Paranormal Podcast, Published
Research begins on the Burton Mausoleum Collection
Wickstead, Helen, 2025, Mausolus: Journal of the Monuments and Mausolea Trustpp 30-34, Published
The false dawn of art
Wickstead, Helen, 2025, The Antiquary (2024-25), Published
Ancient Temple discovered in Kingston conceals even older temple buildings
Wickstead, Helen, 2024, Tomorrow's News Today, Published
Head to head: what use is prehistory to the historian?
Secord, Jim, Wickstead, Helen and Geroulanos, Stefanos, 2024, History Today (74), 6pp 8-9, Published
Tom Armstrong Bowes, Herne Bay Museum and the Lower Paleolithic of the Kentish Stour
Knowles, Peter Geoffrey, Wickstead, Helen and White, Mark John, 2024, The Antiquaries Journal, E-pub ahead of print
Palaeoliths and pareidolia: photography and archaeological stone collecting from the discovery of deep time to the eolith controversies
Wickstead, Helen, 2024, Photography and Culture, E-pub ahead of print
Men-only clubs and museums: associational culture and the gendering of Herne Bay's museum between the wars
Wickstead, Helen and Knowles, Pete, 2022, Museum History Journal, E-pub ahead of print
Recycle archaeology's labels for landfill
Wickstead, Helen, 2022, Extinction Rebellion 'Writers Rebel', Published
Recycle archaeology: social and sustainable alternatives for de-selected materials
Wickstead, Helen, 2022, The Archaeologist (115)pp 23-25, Published
Learning and discovery: Kingston University students contributing to the Save Burlington House Campaign
Wickstead, Helen, 2021, Society of Antiquaries London, Published
Letters from Charles Darwin and Arthur Keith discovered through the SMART project
Wickstead, Helen, 2020, Museum Archaeologists News (64)pp 6-9, Published
Book Review of 'Breaking the surface: an art/archaeology of prehistoric architecture' by Douglass Bailey
Wickstead, Helen, 2020, European Journal of Archaeology (23), 2pp 321-325, Published
Soho typescripts: handmade obscene books in post-war London bookshops
Wickstead, Helen, 2020, Porn Studies (7), 2pp 187-211, Published
The archive: sex in the secret museum : photographs from the British Museum's Witt Scrapbooks
Wickstead, Helen, 2019, Photography and Culture (11), 3pp 351-366, Published
"Wild worship of a lost and buried past": enchanted archaeologies and the cult of Kata, 1908-1924
Wickstead, Helen, 2017, Bulletin of the History of Archaeology (27(1)), 4pp 1-18, Published
Concrete prehistories: the making of megalithic modernism
Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2015, Journal of Contemporary Archaeology (2), 1pp 195-216, Published
Aerial archaeology and the 'lost gardens' of Seething Wells
Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2015, Medical Archives (14), 3pp 73-78, Published
Geochemical survey and metalworking: analysis of chemical residues derived from experimental non-ferrous metallurgical processes in a reconstructed roundhouse
Carey, Chris J., Wickstead, Helen J., Juleff, Gill, Anderson, Jens C. and Barber, Martyn J., 2014, Journal of Archaeological Science (49)pp 383-397, Published
A Spectacular History of Survey by Flying Machine!
Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2012, Cambridge Archaeological Journal (22), 1pp 71-88, Published
'One Immense Black Spot': Aerial views of London 1784-1918
Barber, Martyn and Wickstead, Helen, 2010, London Journal (35), 3pp 236-254, Published
A newly recorded hilltop enclosure at Myncen Farm, Minchington
Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn, 2010, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society (131)pp 103-112, Published
A 'new' enclosure at Minchington, Dorset
Barber, Martyn and Wickstead, Helen, 2009, Research News : newsletter of the English Heritage Research Department, 13pp 29-30, Published
The Uber-Archaeologist: Art, GIS and the male gaze revisited
Wickstead, Helen, 2009, Journal of Social Archaeology (9), 2pp 249-271, Published
Discoveries to the east of Cranbourne Chase: the Damerham Archaeology Project
Wickstead, Helen, Carey, Chris, Bayer, Olaf and Barber, Martyn, 2009, PAST, 61pp 9-12, Published
Remote sensing and geophysical survey near Damerham, Hampshire
Wickstead, Helen, Carey, Chris, Bayer, Olaf and Barber, Martyn, 2009, CBA Wessex News, Springpp 17-19, Published
Historical context and chronology of Bronze Age land enclosure on Dartmoor, UK
Fyfe, R. M., Brück, J., Johnston, R., Lewis, H., Roland, T. P. and Wickstead, H., 2008, Journal of Archaeological Science (35), 8pp 2250-2261, Published
Drawing time
Wickstead, Helen, 2008, British Archaeology, 101pp 44-49, Published
Excavations of Bronze Age field systems on Shovel Down, Dartmoor 2003
Bruck, Joanna, Johnston, Robert and Wickstead, Helen, 2003, PAST, 45, Published
In reply to MacDonald, Hung and Crawford, 1995, 'Prehistory as propaganda'
Wickstead, Helen, 1996, Papers from the Institute of Archaeology (7)pp 9-12, Published
Archaeology on your farm: gaining from history
Wickstead, Helen and Barber, Martyn (2010). Kingston upon Thames: [Published]
Theorizing Tenure: Land Division and Identity in Later Prehistoric Dartmoor, South-West Britain
Wickstead, Helen (2008). Oxford, U.K.: (Archaeopress) [Published]
The museum of yesterday?
Wickstead, Helen (2021). In: Zaba, Jarek, (eds.), Kingston upon Thames, U.K.:pp 8-14 [Published]
The Bornais Phallus
Wickstead, Helen (2020). In: Sharples, Niall, (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Oxbow Books [Accepted/In press]
The phallus in the closet: collecting and classifying ancient sculpture
Wickstead, H (2020). In: Joseph-Lester, Jaspar, (eds.)[Accepted/In press]
Cults of the distribution map: geography, utopia and the making of modern archaeology
Wickstead, Helen (2019). In: Gillings, Mark, Haciguzeller, Piraye, Lock, Gary, (eds.), Abingdon, U.K.:pp 37-72 [Published]
Another proof of the preceding theory: film, materialities and Stonehenge
Wickstead, Helen (2014). In: Russell, Ian Alden, Cochrane, Andrew, (eds.), London, U.K.: Springerpp 99-114 [Published]
Between the lines: drawing archaeology
Wickstead, Helen (2013). In: Graves-Brown, Paul, Harrison, Rodney, Piccini, Angela, (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Presspp 549-564 [Published]
Drawing archaeology
Wickstead, Helen (2008). In: Duff, Leo, Sawdon, Phil, (eds.), Bristol, U.K.:pp 13-27 [Published]
Land, landscape and Englishness in the discovery of prehistoric land division
Wickstead, Helen (2008). In: Chadwick, Adrian M., (eds.), Oxford, U.K.: Archaeopress [Published]
Archaeologist
Wickstead, Helen (2006). In: Adams, Eileen, Baynes, Ken, (eds.), London, U.K.: Campaign for Drawingpp 12-13 [Published]
Creativity and lies: phalli, fiction and fakery in the British Museum’s Secretum
Wickstead, Helen(2025). [Published]
Inside the secret museum: magic, sex, and secrecy in the British Museum’s Secretum, 1865-1896
Wickstead, Helen(2025). [Published]
Inside the secret museum: magic, sex, and secrecy in the British Museum‘s secretum, 1866-1896
Wickstead, Helen(2025). [Published]
Secret museums, occult archaeology, and the counter-public sphere: the British Museum‘s Secretum 1865-1938
Wickstead, Helen(2025). [Published]
Gender-based violence and legacy: the case of Tony Cyriax, 1882-1927
Wickstead, Helen(2025). [Published]
Concealing and revealing the secret museum: the British Museum's Secretum, 1865-1896
Wickstead, Helen(2024). [Published]
Supermarket ruins: archaeological stories for our times
Copsey, Laura, Perry, Sara, Simandiraki-Grimshaw, Anna and Wickstead, Helen(2024). [Published]
Photography and archaeological stone collecting from the discovery of deep time to the Eolith controversies
Wickstead, Helen(2024). [Published]
The secret museum: masculinities, magic, and the British Museum‘s Secretum, 1866-1896
Wickstead, Helen(2024). [Published]
Recycle Archaeology: reuse and recycling of de-selected archaeological artefacts for public benefit
Wickstead, Helen(2022). [Published]
Prehistoric sex objects: the phalli of Windmill Hill
Wickstead, Helen(2016). [Published]
The prehistoric phallus: a history of archaeology and sex
Wickstead, Helen(2016). [Submitted]
Illustration X Recycle Archaeology Student project (UAL & KSA)
Taylor, Rachel Emily, Wickstead, Helen and Copsey, Laura (2022) [Published]
Manual Setting
Wickstead, Helen (2011) [Published]
Touchstone: Contemporary art encounters archaeology
Chittick, Kim and Wickstead, Helen (2010) [Published]