This part of the British Museum’s website gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the scientific
techniques used to analyze
and date objects in the museum’s
collections. There are five main sections: Investigating the Collections, Research
Techniques, About the Department, Collections Documentation, and News. The starting point for explaining the variety of techniques and what they can tell us about an object (how old is it? where does it come from? how was it made?) is a specific artifact for each category of material – for example, medieval enamels to illustrate techniques used to examine glass, Peruvian whistling pots for ceramics, a Bronze Age skeleton for radiocarbon dating, and so on. The objects are beautifully illustrated and have an interactive component, with pop-up windows that explain how a particular technique works for each type of material. The elaborate equipment used for these investigations is also well-illustrated and explained in clear language – the site steers clear of blinding you with science, and the highly visual approach helps make even the most esoteric-sounding techniques (such as ‘energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence’ and ‘atomic absorption spectrophotometry’) comprehensible to the non-specialist. The News section includes information on some of the items in the museum’s collection currently under investigation, a calendar of events at the museum, and recent museum publications. Each section provides a Further Reading list.
A useful research tool for researchers and specialists are the department’s thesauri (accessed from the Collections Documentation section), which are continually updated and expanded as new sections of the collections are added and new objects acquired. The two thesauri, on materials and on object names, are unique in the vast range of terms they include, a result of documenting collections across the world from almost any historical period, a great variety of cultures, and covering practically any type of object.
The site scores highly for ease of navigation, visual clarity, and attractive lay-out and design; however, there is no search function – so, for example, you can’t look up techniques not covered in this section – nor are any links provided. But from any page you can access the British Museum home page, with dozens more sections to explore and browse.