Explore the Collections

Even the small sounds of an afternoon can be significant, when you can hear them

Watch a film about one of the most provocative pieces in the Museum of Classical Archaeology's Cast Gallery.

Prehistoric necklaces inspire an intriguing poem

Meet Little John, a very bony fish and learn about conservation in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

Meet Bridging Binaries LGBTQ+ Tour guide Tim Drummond and the Museum of Zoology's Emperor Penguin

Listen to poems written by Year 8 students from Cromwell Community College as part of a Heritage Fund project called 'Pacific Currents'.

The combined histories of botanical science and warfare

A mask with many unheard stories

A botanical watercolour reveals the connection between science and empire

Meet Antinous, the boy who became a god...

A small plate with a big story

A new exhibition at Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology illuminates the beautiful, turbulent history of butterflies across the UK.

Josh Nall, Curator of Modern Sciences at the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, talks about the makers who aim to deceive.

Objects from the University of Cambridge Museums as you've never seen them before...

Royal relationships explored through crockery

Next time you are in a museum, think about what items might have been used for, and what kind of society might have created them...

An "unbroken marriage of souls"

Objects from across the University of Cambridge Museums as you've never heard them before...

View an online exhibition by the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, celebrating Te Atairangikaahu, Māori Queen.

Enjoy a tour of the Sedgwick Museum's new Collections Research Centre.

Enjoy an online exhibition featuring five colour lithographs and one etching by New Zealand artist Marian Maguire, who imagines how the passing millennia might have affected the traditional roles of the ancient Greek goddesses. 

Charlotte Connelly, Curator at The Polar Museum, tells us about some atmospheric ink drawings and scrimshaw created by whalers voyaging in the Arctic.

A portrait of an unknown woman

Meet a pioneering geologist, motorcyclist and spy...

Theo Sayers imagines the story behind an archive photograph in the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences.

For Museum Remix: Unheard, Sade Ojelade and Eleanor Wilkinson answer your questions about their chosen objects live on YouTube

Take a tour of the exhibition ‘Church and the Ancestors: Sacred pir mats from Asmat, Papua, Indonesia’.

How do we untangle complex colonial histories to reach the unnamed sitter of these portraits?

Helen Ritchie, Research Assistant at The Fitzwilliam Museum, talks about samplers and the role they played for young women in the 17th and 18th century.

An exhibition of photographs by Robert McCabe

A well-travelled typewriter

This piece concerns the Iguanodon fossil cast in the Sedgwick Museum.

Dive into the miniature world of tiny marine creatures

Diamonds with a dark past

A remarkable Victorian scrapbook

Eliza Spindel, Curatorial and Research Assistant at Kettle's Yard, tells us about a tea bowl from Kettle's Yard and a case of mistaken identity.

‘This Globe is Broken’. A poem about how the globe as an object is not neutral. A response to the colonial 1875 Jigsaw Globe on display in the Whipple Museum’s Globe Gallery.

16th-century knights led dangerous lives

Dr Susanne Turner, Curator at the Museum of Classical Archaeology, talks to us about a plaster cast taken from a carved marble head of the ancient Greek god Apollo. 

Meet Titus, the titan arum plant with a very distinctive smell.

Meet the French Empress and her botanical namesake

Enjoy a large collection of paper valentines courtesy of Dr Rebecca Virag and The Fitzwilliam Museum

Take an LGBTQ+ tour of the Museum of Zoology. 

Nicholas Thomas, Director at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, talks about a 19th / early 20th century barkcloth.

Imogen Gunn, Collections Manager at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, talks to Nick Oram about a rude Roman pot. 

An audience with collectors Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon

A portrait that reveals the relationship between exploration and exploitation

Who gets to define disability?

Listen to poems written by Year 8 students from Cromwell Community College as part of a Heritage Fund project called 'Pacific Currents'.

How can we give voice to an enslaved woman who died two thousand years ago?

Photograph with an untold story

200-year-old spectacles that help us see changing attitudes to disability

Listen to poems written by Year 8 students from Cromwell Community College as part of a Heritage Fund project called 'Pacific Currents'.

What can a kayak, gut parka and voting badge tell us about climate change?

Hear the gossip from the royal court... 

Game Designer Elizabeth Simoens invites Exhibitions and Display Coordinator at the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Rob Theodore, to her island to visit the museum.

This piece concerns Mary Anning's Icthyosaur in the Sedgwick Museum. What stories of power and memory, gender and colonialism, could this ichthyosaur bring to life?

A tiny figurine head from Roman Egypt

Behind the scenes on Facebook Live in the paper conservation studio with Harry Metcalf, Conservator of Works of Art on Paper, and Hannah Price, UCM Programme Coordinator.

A major exhibition explores the evolution of island identity on Cyprus, Crete and Sardinia from the Neolithic to the Romans

This piece concerns two bronze sculptures of Roman emperors Augustus and Claudius at the Museum of Classical Archaeology.

Why does the Whipple Museum of the History of Science have a Scientology E-meter?

This piece concerns four broken terracotta figurines from Naukratis, a Greek trading post in Egypt from the Museum of Classical Archaeology. 

Early in lockdown, the Getty Museum challenged social media users to recreate artworks from its collection using household objects.

The human body is a museum

A poem that gives voice to the unknown subject of two 19th-century photographs

How should we approach the Queen who became a symbol of the British Empire itself?

An online exhibition exploring archaeological practice today, with original artwork by Zofia Guertin and Sofia Greaves.

An intriguing pair of necklaces from early human history

How do you make sure you pass successfully into the Ancient Egyptian afterlife? This Facebook Live video takes us to the Fitzwilliam Museum to visit the Book of the Dead of Ramose.

Who counts as a scientist?

Discover the origins of the Scott Polar Research Institute as they celebrate 100 years of pioneering research. 

Julia, a volunteer LGBTQ+ tour guide at The Polar Museum, talks to us about an egg laid by an Adélie penguin in the early 20th century.

Remember Titus, Cambridge University Botanic Garden’s stinky corpse flower? He’s had babies...

For Museum Remix: Unheard, Liz Hide and Helen Ritchie answer questions about their Museum Remix objects live on YouTube

A statue is given a voice

Find out more about the oldest modern bird fossil from the age of dinosaurs

A twist of the hand is an exhibition in the Museum of Classical Archaeology, featuring works by Norwich-based artist James Epps.

How the Saka people of the Great Steppe made history and great art.

An exciting new collection of dinosaur casts was donated to the Sedgwick Museum in 2017. Among them, those of a prehistoric icon: Tyrannosaurus rex.

Rebecca Virag talks about the making and meaning of a portfolio of lithographic prints which were commissioned by the British Government’s propaganda department in 1917.

Listen to poems written by Year 8 students from Cromwell Community College as part of a Heritage Fund project called 'Pacific Currents'.

The Whipple Museum of the History of Science as an institution is not neutral. A response to the colonial 1875 Jigsaw Globe on display in the Museum’s Globe Gallery.

Discover the evolutionary tale of the chimpanzee and bonobo.

Travel to windswept Greenland with a trusty typewriter as your guide

Watch this film to find out more about Magdalene Odundo, one of the greatest ceramic artists working today, and her practice.

Mathelinda Nabugodi investigates the impact of colonialism and the slave trade on Romantic poets.

Enjoy a virtual view of MAA's July 2022 - April 2023 exhibition, showcasing collections from across our museums, libraries and colleges.

Brace yourself for a digital exhibition featuring work by artists who specialise in the polar regions.

Visit an online exhibition featuring two works sculpted nearly 500 years apart. Despite this, the materials, techniques, scale, and the idealisation of the male body are similar. Intrigued? 

Take a look at the Sedgwick Museum archive from a different narrative.
 

Why are we reluctant to engage with the idea of a woman taking part in a battle?

"An unbroken marriage of souls"

Ellen, a volunteer LGBTQ+ tour guide for the University of Cambridge Museums, talks about a statue representing Durga, found in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

New clothes for a Queen who became a symbol of the British Empire

Jack Ashby, Museum Manager at the University Museum of Zoology, tackles taxidermy and its inclusion in Artist: Unknown.

Sacred carvings made by the Nenets people of North Siberia