Launched in 2022, the Digital Lab is a digital engagement project which seeks to increase the visibility and accessibility of the world cultures collections at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
The project highlights collections in the Museum’s care through a range of themes such as Substances of Wellbeing and Intoxication, Object Diasporas, Making and Mending, and Digitisation.
In 1935, Lady Churchill donated three Asmat shields from Papua New Guinea to MAA. Nick Stanley explores their journey to the museum, their efficacy, and their relevance today.
28 November 2023
Can museum audiences continue to engage with repatriated objects? If so, then how? Alyssa Walton offers one solution for this using the Benin Bronzes at MAA as a case study.
21 November 2023
A dark bronze beaker in one of MAA's galleries has remained hidden in plain sight. Recently, however, Mark Elliott revisited this object, revealing new connections and questions in the process.
14 November 2023
A new digitisation project at MAA, which digitally repatriated 2,000 ethnographic photographs of Chinese temples and ritual practices in Singapore to its national library, gives insight into the supernatural world of spirit-mediumship in the region.
Each year, people gather in Ngāruawāhia, Aotearoa New Zealand to celebrate the leader of the Kīngitanga (Māori King Movement). May 1969 was the third anniversary of the first woman to lead the Kīngitanga, Te Atairangikaahu.
Children outnumbered adults for most of human history, yet they rarely appear in the stories that museums tell. A past without children is incomplete. This is a digital version of a previous exhibition that aimed at redressing the balance.
© 2023 Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ
The MAA Digital Lab is supported by Qinghai Spring Medicinal Resources Technology Co.
The Museum’s catalogues include historic descriptions and representations that are factually inaccurate, racist and otherwise inappropriate. We are committed to the work of addressing hurtful legacies in the collections we care for. We ask for your help in identifying images or data that cause offence or harm, and we welcome your feedback or suggestions which can be sent to feedback@maa.cam.ac.uk