Research and knowledge exchange projects
Our curatorial departments conduct research programmes across the broad range of collections disciplines.
Research in our collections directorate fits broadly under three major themes – Scotland's Material Heritage, Identities and Cultural Contacts, and Sustainability.
Chitrali Shu
The mountainous region of Chitral in northern Pakistan is home to a pure woollen fabric called 'shu' or 'patti'. This project will document this living tradition through film and interviews.
Entangled Knowledges
Entangled Knowledges aims to highlight Menang Nyungar knowledge embedded in a historical fish collection held at National Museums Scotland and return this knowledge to the Menang community in Western Australia.
Reveal and Connect
Our collaborative project will publish a national review of African and Caribbean collections held in museums across Scotland, and establish a network of interests to encourage engagement with these collections.
Materialising the Cold War
Three decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, our collaborative project explores how the Cold War is represented in museums.
Egypt's Dispersed Heritage
Explore the legacies of the British archaeology in Egypt and the dialogue being created around these collections.
Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard
This 3-year project aims to challenge current understanding of the process of hoarding through an interdisciplinary study of one of the best-preserved hoards found in Britain to date.
Do Not Feed the Animals
This collaborative project looks at the roots of animal feeding, to establish the benefits and risk to humans, animals, and the environment.
People and Plants
People and Plants will investigate the interplay between natural history and ethnography collections in museums, emphasising their value as material archives of indigenous ecological knowledge.
Buying Power: British Archaeology and the Antiquities Market in Egypt and Sudan 1880 - 1939
This research project will investigate how archaeologists involved in British-led excavations in Egypt and Sudan engaged with the antiquities market between 1880 - 1939.
Research themes
Research in our collections directorate fits broadly under the following three major themes:
Scotland's Material Heritage
2021 – Materialising the Cold War
2021 – Unwrapping the Galloway Hoard
2021 – Exchange
2019 – Egypt’s Dispersed Heritage
2019 – WITH Coastal Style
2018 – Prehistoric Gold in Britain
2018 – Reclaiming Romance
2017 – The Fabric of Life: Early Polynesian barkcloth in context
2017 – Baggage and Belonging: Collecting practices of the British Army
2016 – Scottish collectors in central Africa
2016 – African Barkcloth
2016 – African Commemorative Textiles project
2015 – Revealing the Layers: the Umbrian Madonna and Child
2015 – Silver, Status and Society
2013 – ReINVENT & ReCREATE
2012 – Wha' bears a blade for Scotland?
2011 – Colouring the Nation
2008 – Glenmorangie Research Project into Early Medieval Scotland
Identities and Cultural Contacts
2019 – WITH Coastal Style
2018 – The Matter of Slavery in Scotland
2017 – Baggage and Belonging: Collecting practices of the British Army
2017 – Trading Places
2017 – The Fabric of Life: Early Polynesian barkcloth in context
2016 – African Barkcloth
2016 – Scottish collectors in central Africa
2011 – Colouring the Nation
Sustainability
2021 – Rocks and the Rise of Ordovician Life
2020 – Do Not Feed the Animals
2018 – CryoArks
2015 – The TWeed project: Evolution’s Missing Chapter
1994 – Virginia Solite Quarry