Museums and Museum websites

Many museums have artifacts that can provide information and inspiration for clothing, jewelry, armor, needlework, art objects and other crafted objects.

Some museums have pictures of artifacts and exhibits online.

• Virtual Library museums pages "A distributed directory of on-line museums." Provides lists of online museums all over the world.

• V&A (The Victoria and Albert Museum) (London, England) "The world's greatest museum of art and design, with collections unrivalled in their scope and diversity. Discover 3000 years' worth of amazing artefacts from many of the world's richest cultures including ceramics, furniture, fashion, glass, jewellery, metalwork, photographs, sculpture, textiles and paintings." The collection includes costume and decorative arts, such as needlework, textiles and ceramics, from Medieval to modern.

• The British Museum (London, England) "A collection of art and antiquities from ancient and living cultures. The collection is one of the finest in existence, spanning two million years of human history." COMPASS is the collection online, a database of about 5000 objects. The scope of this collection is indescribable--everything from Ancient Egypt and Babylon to Vikings and Japanese swords.

• The State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia) "Put together throughout two centuries and a half, the Hermitage collections of works of art (over 3,000,000 items) present the development of the world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century." The Digital Collection offers a fantastic zoom feature.

• The Museum of National Antiquities (Stockholm, Sweden) "Swedish cultural history and art from the Stone Age to the 16th century." Prehistoric, Viking, and Gothic artifacts. Most of this site available in English: look for the links.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA) "The Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the world's largest and finest art museums. Its collections include more than two million works of art spanning 5,000 years of world culture, from prehistory to the present and from every part of the globe." Collections include Arms & Armor, Costume History, Asian, Egyptian, Islamic and Medieval art.

• The Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge, England) "The art museum of the University of Cambridge. It contains magnificent collections of works of art and antiquities of national and international importance." PHAROS is the collection online, and has images of illuminations, art, and artifacts from ancient, medieval and modern cultures.