Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

@maacambridge.bsky.social

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, telling two million years of human history 🗺

Website: maa.cam.ac.uk/
Collections: collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/
Blog: maadigitallab.org/

@maacambridge.bsky.social

Sadly, we know very little about this photo. We don't have names recorded for the two men pictured, nor are we sure where the cave is located. However, we love the drama of the image and the way one of the archaeologists is silhouetted against the cave mouth.

An archaeological field excavation in process with a man standing at the foot of a ladder, in the mouth of a cave, silhouetted against the light streaming in from outside. To the right of the mouth of the cave steps lead down into a sunken structure in which another man stands, partially hidden in the shadows.
@maacambridge.bsky.social

This small pottery sherd offers a tantalising glimpse of the design which once decorated it! The design bears a striking resemblance to the octopodes motifs which were popular with the Minoans.

What do you think, could this pattern depict the arms of an octopus, or something else?
#WorldOctopusDay

A fragment of pottery decorated with thick black wavy lines which have a row of circles running along one edge. The sherd is set against an underwater background.
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The wearable bake challenge on last night's #BakeOff has inspired us to take a look through our collections portal to see which hats we'd like to see edible versions of.

The shape of this hat makes it a deceptively simple choice - you know you'll run out of time trying to recreate that pattern!

A short cylindrical-shaped hat made from woven cotton fabric. It has a dark blue, mid blue and white striped pattern, with fainter white stripes woven in perpendicular to the other stripes to create a checked design.
@maacambridge.bsky.social

There are still places available at our free sessions for home educated children aged 7 to 11 on 08/10/2026! Focusing on Roman Britain there'll be the opportunity for objects handling, a talk on Roman Cambridge, and the chance to identify Roman pottery sherds. 📸 Image credit: My Linh Le, 2025.

A member of the museum's education and outreach team challenges a child to identify pottery sherds from a collection of pottery and similarly looking stone fragments laid out on a table.
@maacambridge.bsky.social

Our Photographic Collections team has achieved the remarkable target of digitalising 92% of the catalogued collections! This image was the 167,233rd photograph digitised to reach this figure. The next step is to add the images to our collections portal and digitalise 1,431 more photos to reach 93%.

Two men sit on small raised wooden platforms. A pyramid-like structure made from poles stands over each platform, from which hangs a small loom.
@maacambridge.bsky.social

Last night was biscuit week on the #BakeOff, so we had to take a look through the collections portal to see if we could find any biscuits, and we weren't disappointed! This Biddenden cake is a 103-year-old biscuit featuring Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, a pair of conjoined twins from the 1100s.
#GBBO

Three once identical rectangular biscuits featuring a raised design of two women standing side-by-side in Elizabethan dresses. Above them are the words "ELIS AND MARY" and "CHULKHURST", whilst "BIDDENDEN" appears below.
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