It would be a great injustice to single out particular exhibits as the best ones because this was perhaps the most interesting and diverse museum we visited in Stockholm.
from the navigational instruments used by early explorers to the cultural treasures they brought home from the places they travelled.
Today of course we question the morality of such practices but right or wrong the collections they formed offer a fascinating glimpse into cultures in parts of the World that are rapidly changing.
The Octant above and the Transit Board left seem like crude tools to trust your life to on the wide oceans but three hundred years ago such instruments were opening the Globe to trade in ways that have formed the World as we know it today.
One of my favourite museums in the UK is the Pitt Rivers in Oxford and one section of this museum the “Magasin” reminded me a lot of that.
The haphazard manner in which early collections were built up means that many museums have storehouses full of miscellaneous “stuff” that does not lend itself to any meaningful manner of displaying it all.
This is a great shame as much of this material is fascinating in it’s own right and often quirky by it’s nature.
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