We’ve opened cupboards and found wall paintings from Pompeii.
- Jill Whitelock
The answers lie in the second major exhibition of Cambridge University Library’s 600th anniversary – Curious Objects – which puts on display a collection of curiosities that has been centuries in the making.
Open to the public now and following on from the hugely successful Lines of Thought, the exhibits on display in Curious Objects cover all corners of the globe and every era of human history, from the Stone Age to the Space Age.
Research for the exhibition has turned up new and rediscovered finds – including the oldest objects in the Library, two black-topped redware pots from Predynastic Egypt, and the oldest written artefact, a Sumerian clay tablet from around 2200 BCE.
As one of only six Legal Deposit libraries in the UK and Ireland, Cambridge University Library has been entitled to a copy of every UK publication since 1710. But it also predates the era of most modern museums and collections, meaning that over the centuries, it has been a depository for all manner of objects, all of which have a part to play in telling the story of one of the world’s greatest libraries.
Among the curious objects on display are:
- ‘Ectoplasm’ captured during a séance by Helen Duncan (circa 1950) – the last person to be imprisoned under the Witchcraft Act of 1735
- Stone Age tools from Northern Nigeria
- A Predynastic Egyptian drinking vessel
- Fragments of wall paintings from Pompeii (circa 20 BCE-79 CE)
- A pocket globe (1775) tracing Captain Cook’s first voyage
- A spirit trumpet for use at séances
- A Shakespeare tobacco stopper
- Beard and scalp hair posted to Charles Darwin – as a counterargument to claims Darwin made in Descent of Man
- A Soyuz space badge, cigarettes and food packaging from the Cold War-era Soviet Union
Watch a teaser video and read the full story
Image: Asante gold weights Brass, Ghana.
Credit: Cambridge University Library
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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