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 […]
Money with soul: The kissi penny
If I say ’money’, I’ll wager that there is a pretty good chance that you’ll conjure up an image of coins and bank notes. But what exactly is money? What it basically boils down to, is some sort of artefact that we have all agreed […]
Anything can be made with imagination and enough raffia
All right, can we talk about how awesome this home-made laptop is?! Made from the raffia, and collected in Gabon in 1998, it is wonderfully wacky with all its knobs, buttons, and dials, and shows such a tremendous amount of imagination. We do not know […]
Love, cigarettes, and new beginnings: Happy New Year!
Ah, New Year’s Eve. A night of celebration with friends. Of looking back at the ups and downs of the past year, and with hope and good wishes for the year to come. It is also a night of good food, copious amounts of champagne, […]
Beware the angry elf!
Who says Christmas has to be this happy time, where everybody revels in candles, presents, and family comfort, and where you might meet a jolly Father Christmas accompanied by a helpful elf in every department store and kindergarten across the land. Looking at the little […]
