Topic description and stories

A feather in your cap: inside the symbolic universe of Renaissance Europe

02 Nov 2017

Today, feathers are an extravagant accessory in fashion; 500 years ago, however, they were used to constitute culture, artistry, good health and even...

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Animal, vegetable, mineral: the making of Buddhist texts

12 Jul 2014

The wide-ranging objects on display at Buddha’s Word, an exhibition at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, show how Tibetan book makers used...

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From fleece to the fibre of local identity: the man in the foreground wears a traditional Fair Isle jumper for working with sheep

Making the cloth that binds us: spinning, weaving and island identity

10 Nov 2012

Ben Cartwright, a member of Cambridge’s Material Culture Lab, is an archaeologist whose research focuses on the ways in which the crafts of spinning...

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