Hafan y Blog

What’s behind the doors?!

Katie Mortimer-Jones, Lucy McCobb & Katherine Slade, 10 Rhagfyr 2020

Have you ever asked yourself the question “What’s behind the gallery doors of National Museum Cardiff”? Well, if you have then this blog might be for you. The specimens and objects you see in the galleries are just a fraction of those we have in the museum’s collections. So why do we have so many? Specimens in the galleries do suffer when exposed to light while on display, and occasionally from being touched by little sticky fingers! To help protect them, we regularly swap fragile objects on display with those in our stores. We also change objects round for the different exhibitions we produce. Objects behind the scenes are also used for a whole variety of different activities such as education and research. 

While we may not be able to put all of our specimens on display, we do like to share as many of them as we can via our social media channels. In the Natural Sciences Department, we do that via the @CardiffCurator Twitter account. Each week, we might share our worm highlights on #WormWednesday, some of our fantastic fossils on #FossilFriday and various other amazing specimens on other days of the week via various alliterations! 

Of course, the festive season is no different and each year we promote Christmassy objects via a #MuseumAdvent calendar. For 2020, our calendar has been inspired by the ‘Nature on your doorstep’ program which the museum has run throughout lockdown aimed at reconnecting people with nature. One of the main activities has been photo bingo, where we challenged people to find and photograph a number of objects. For winter bingo, we released a card at the end of November with 24 wintery things, such a robin, holly, frost and a sunset. Behind every door of our museum advent calendar, we included helpful tips and photographs from our collections, alongside live photos to help people find everything on the bingo sheet.

We are nearly half way through the calendar, but if you would like to join in why not follow the #MuseumAdvent hashtag over on @CardiffCurator and see if you can call “House” before the 24th December.

Katie Mortimer-Jones

Uwch Guradur: Anifeiliaid Di-asgwrn-cefn Morol
Gweld Proffil

Dr Lucy McCobb

Uwch Guradur (Palaeontoleg)
Gweld Proffil

Katherine Slade

Curadur Botaneg
Gweld Proffil

sylw (2)

Nid yw sylwadau ar gael ar hyn o bryd. Ymddiheuriadau am yr anghyfleustra.
Donna Short Staff Amgueddfa Cymru
25 Chwefror 2021, 14:15

Dear Mr Evans.

Diolch yn fawr/ Thank you so much for contacting National Museum Wales.

If you could

contact me directly
I would be happy to help you with your enquiry.

I look forward to hearing from you shortly.

Kind Regards
Donna

Noel Evans
11 Ionawr 2021, 17:37

Can any one help please, my great grandfather was a congregational minister, I have recently found what I think is a sermon written by him, is it possible to age the paper it is written on, it is at least one hundred years old, and could be a lot more, thanking you in advance if you are able to help. Noel Evans.