This historic Bruce-Oosterwijck pendulum sea clock played an important role in the long quest for a practical way of determining longitude at sea; a problem that made sea voyages incredibly hazardous.

A University of Glasgow Student Work Placement Project Jan – Apr 2017

Following the success of the initial project, we succeeded in securing funding from the Henry Moore Foundation and the KT Wiedemann Foundation to go further in our analysis of the 14-century sculpture of the Madonna and Child.

Britain had twenty-two ‘international’ exhibitions in the second half of the nineteenth century, starting with the Great Exhibition at London’s Crystal Palace in 1851. There were similar exhibitions in Europe and America and in the British colonial capitals, as well as in the main British provincial cities. These exhibitions provided excellent opportunities for manufacturers to show off their products.

Interested in learning more about Turkey red and the British textile industry? Explore our reading list.

The Douglas Nugget, Britain's largest gold nugget.

Although India was the biggest market for the Scottish Turkey red manufacturers, this did not stop the Vale of Leven firms from seeking out new customers. By the end of the nineteenth century they had established trade links with the Far East, Africa, Australia and the South Pacific.

Matthew is a Senior Curator of Prehistory responsible for the Scottish Chalcolithic and Bronze Age collections. He is also responsible for the Scottish archaeological human remains collections.

John Giblin is Keeper for the Department of World Cultures.

Dr Stig Walsh is Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeobiology.

The research for the Democratising Knowledge project focused on archival material, the woodblocks and their production, and an analysis of the illustrations in Chambers's encyclopaedias.

This block is one of the few surviving casing stones from the Great Pyramid of Giza, built for King Khufu. It is the only pyramid casing stone on display outside Egypt.

The Invertebrate collections date from the mid-1800s and include samples of many different groups of animals.

Jerry Herman is Senior Curator of Vertebrates and specialises in mammals.

The Adabrock bead

Find out more about graduate research undertaken through the Edinburgh Earth and Environment (E3) Doctoral Training Programme (DTP).

The Knowes of Trotty discs

The Whitefarland Hoard, Arran

There were three types of illustration styles that Chambers used in their publications. They can be classified as pictorial, facsimile and schematic.

Studying artefacts made and used by those working in the printing industries helps inform what we know about 19th-century printing history. A study of the objects in the W. & R. Chambers collection reveals details of their image making process.

Our World Cultures collections include internationally important material from across the globe.

A number of firms tried to perfect the Turkey red process and capitalise on the demand for these brightly coloured printed cottons, but many of these enterprises were short-lived. Three firms from the Vale of Leven, however, successfully produced and exported Turkey red dyed and printed cottons and became leaders of the industry.