Explore the Collections

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

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

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? 

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

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. 

The combined histories of botanical science and warfare

Meet the French Empress and her botanical namesake

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

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"

Who gets to define disability?

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

Sacred carvings made by the Nenets people of North Siberia

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

A portrait that reveals the relationship between exploration and exploitation

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

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

Dive into the miniature world of tiny marine creatures

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

Prehistoric necklaces inspire an intriguing poem

Travel to windswept Greenland with a trusty typewriter as your guide

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

A statue is given a voice

A portrait of an unknown woman

An "unbroken marriage of souls"

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

A botanical watercolour reveals the connection between science and empire

16th-century knights led dangerous lives

A tiny figurine head from Roman Egypt

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

The human body is a museum

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.

A well-travelled typewriter

Diamonds with a dark past

A mask with many unheard stories

An intriguing pair of necklaces from early human history

A small plate with a big story

A remarkable Victorian scrapbook

Royal relationships explored through crockery

An audience with collectors Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon

Who counts as a scientist?

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

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

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

Photograph with an untold story

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

We need a biopic about him ASAP

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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. 

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

Discover the evolutionary tale of the chimpanzee and bonobo.

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