Museums

Curiosities

$Natural history museum - This is a tiny fraction of the National Museum of Natural History’s anthropology collection, which in turn comprises less than 2 percent of the institution’s astounding array of objects—some 126 million artifacts and specimens in all.$
The Skeletons in the Museum Closet
Can natural history museums justify their collections of human remains?
Curiosities

Were Peace Medals the Price of Loyalty?
Among gifts, the peace medal is one of the most coveted—and complex.
Curiosities

The Many Hands Shirt: Reuniting a Family and an Heirloom
Sometimes objects in museum collections lead to a lot of conflict. In the best cases, though, they give rise to mutual respect and gratitude.
Snapshot

The Birth of the “Neanderthals”
Library archives reveal the Gibraltar skull’s role in the discovery of our sister species.
Snapshot

Stone Points to a Connected World
Signs of 19th-century globalization surface in a museum storage room.