When my son was 4 years old, he loved to dress in skirts. Reactions from the surroundings varied a lot: from the daycare assistant who laughed and said he was funny, to his great grandfather who exclaimed that skirts were for girls only. Not to […]
Poo-poo, Pee-pee and… Reindeer Lichen! Fighting Environmental Threats with Ethnographica
Ethnographic objects inspiring state-of-the-art green innovation? Indeed! Inspired by objects from our Sibirian collections, Moesgaard Museum launches an innovative and sustainable solution to an immense challenge for the planet, namely the excessive use of disposable diapers. Over the recent 30 years, disposable diapers have become […]
An impermanent artefact: The sand mandala
These days, a splash of colour has been added to the view from the railing around the central staircase at Moesgaard Museum. Looking down, our visitors will be met with the splendid colours and intricate details of a Buddhist sand mandala. During a week in […]
Drinking the bitter root: The mato oput bowl
Sometimes these days, I feel like the world is a mess. We are fighting over ridiculous things, and not focusing enough on what matters. Pardon me for the Game of Thrones reference, but it feels like we are living through the War of the Five […]
A collection of treasures and stories: Randi Dæhnfeldt’s collection
I have always found the phenomenon of ‘the collector’ immensely fascinating. Perhaps because I am a bit of a collector myself… I have saved every cinema ticket since seeing The Waterboy in 1998, and am the proud owner of a splendid rock (actual rocks, not […]
Death wearing feathered shoes: Aboriginal khutaitchi
Here is a truly curious pair of shoes. They are so-called khutaitchi shoes, made by a sorcerer or magician of the Central Australian Pitjantjara tribe. In traditional Aboriginal beliefs, there is no such thing as a natural death, which means that there is usually an […]
Deep-sea dreams: A Kuwaiti pearl diver’s box
When most of us think of Kuwait, we might think of oil and deserts. But did you know that Kuwait used to boast of a thriving pearl diving business? Kuwait is situated on the Persian Golf, and for thousands of years, pearl divers have descended […]
Who says working in a museum is boring???
A while ago, I stumbled upon something pretty awesome in our database. Something that says a lot about working at Moesgaard, ‘back in the days’. If you are a regular reader of this blog (or take a quick glance over the previous posts), you’ll see […]
“Listen to the songs of the semsemeya, the beautiful sounds of Port Said”
The semsemeya is an instrument that looks slightly like a cross between a harp and a guitar to the unfamiliar eye. The instrument originally comes from Upper Egypt, where it used to be much larger. In fact, the semsemeya ‘evolved’ from the tambura, which shares […]
A royal saddle bag
I do not think we have many artefacts in our collection, which can claim to have a whiff of royalty about them. The camel bag in the picture above is one of those few. It was given to Lieutenant Colonel Harold Richard Patrick Dickson by […]
A little vial of fingernails (yes, actual fingernails)
In the autumn, we were doing an inventory of our storage facilities, double-checking the placements we have noted in our database with the physical placements of the artefacts on our shelves. And it came as no surprise that we found several funny or interesting artefacts […]
A rock! Arguably the dullest ethnographic artefact ever?
Looking through our database, I came across collection EA355. Where other collections have names such as ‘EA365 Greenlandic dog sled’, ‘EA484 Bushman artefacts’, or ‘EA544 Thai Amulets’, this one went under the simple and mysterious name ‘EA355 Rock’. Clicking on the collection, the description page […]
