WHAT?
What is in the collection?

The Museum has over 50,000 objects in its collection. The collections contain cultural objects and natural history specimens.

A cultural object, also called an artifact, is something made by a person. An artifact's appearance, how it was made and how it was used can tell us about the person who made it and also about the society and time in which the person lives or lived.

The Museum has artifacts from many different cultures from all over the world. We also have cultural objects from societies much closer to home, such as Native American artifacts from the Wampanoag community and local Boston artifacts.

A natural history object, sometimes called a "specimen," can be an animal, insect, rock, shell or plant. Our collection also includes fossils of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago.

You can see objects from our collections in the Museum's exhibits and programs.