Objects are evidence of somewhere, something, or somebody and as such all have stories to tell.

Recently a class of adults studying creative writing at Carduff University attended a workshop here with me in the Clore Discovery Centre. They took on the role of a curator and wrote their own creative labels for some of their favourite objects in the gallery. Here are a few examples:

 

Iron-Nickel Meteorite (Approximately 4.5 billion years old)

 I wandered lonely, in a cloud of fragments, beyond the Martian orbit, since the beginnings of the Solar System some four-and-a-half billions of years ago. A passing satellite, en-route from Earth to who knows where, disturbed my orbit, and I fell towards the distant sun. Later, I felt the pull of Earth, and spiralled down into its gravity well – faster and faster until in fiery glory I blazed across the sky, a meteorite. Though reduced in size, I fell to earth. A fragment of the ancient history of the Solar System – a messenger from outer space – here I lie in The National Museum Collection.

David Edwards

 

What is it? Popular wrong answers include a drinking vessel or a paperweight!!

 It is an axe head. Bronze Age man hafted it to a wooden handle and used the D shaped loop on the side for strapping.  Butchering, wood-cutting and self-defence are among possible uses for this versatile tool.

 Mike Dolan

 

A snakestone fossil

thought to be magic,

I was a cephalopod

with head and foot fused.

 

In life I relied

on plain hydraulics

a siphuncle curled

like a twirling straw

 

adjusted the pressure

in my chambered coils,

let me rise and fall

as I dodged ichthyosaurs.