York Castle Museum

Star Object

Tat or treasure?

The Yorkshire Museum is full of objects that our ancestors would have considered common, every-day items or cheap, quirky souvenirs picked up on their travels.

We often give visitors the chance to take a closer look at them in our Dating Bar activity area, to show the variety of objects that can end up becoming the treasures of the future.

This is easy to show with everyday items from more recent times like the 1960s or the 1980s in a museum like York Castle Museum, but less obvious with archaeological and geological objects.