Sir – Christopher Brown, the director of the Ashmolean, is pictured prominently on your front page (August 19) with a proudly proprietorial right hand placed firmly on the knee of the unique and no doubt priceless statue of The Ram of Amun, a knee clearly polished by previous hand contact.
This sets a bad examples for the hundreds of daily visitors to the museum and is poor curatorial practice. The most solid and permanent-looking ancient artefacts are degraded and damaged by perpetual touching.
I hope and trust that The Ashmolean has and enforces a strict ‘No Touch’ policy and that Mr Brown can confirm this.
Stephen Goldby, Headington
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