100+ Museum Words

December 15, 2023

When viewing exhibitions and collections at a museum, it can help to have the right words to articulate what it is you are viewing. You may ask yourself, what makes an item an artifact, or why do certain materials require preservation versus restoration? Whether you’re studying to become a curator or are simply interested in museum words you can use with others, we’ve got you covered. Follow along to take a tour of museum-related vocabulary.

Related:

Words Related to History

Table of Contents

Artifact

Historical items such as textiles, bones, jewelry, pottery, glassware, artworks, armor, photographs, mummies, and more can all be defined as artifacts.

Ancient artifacts—like the Rosetta Stone, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the mask of Tutankhamun, and the Elgin marbles— offer museum visitors a glimpse into the way life used to be through objects used during that time.

You can find large collections of artifacts at museums like the Louvre, the British Museum, the Vatican Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Preservation

To protect artifacts and important works of art from harm, museums must painstakingly preserve what they show to the public.

Preservation can take on many forms and includes the art of cataloging, handling, securing, and appropriately displaying items and collections with extreme care.

If you’ve ever been asked to step away from a painting or have seen a gallery cordoned off by a velvet rope, that’s one measure of preservation.

Other means include glass paneling, temperature control, sensory indicators, and the use of appropriate lighting. These measures ensure what is being displayed cannot be harmed by human touch or environmental factors.

Curator

Curators oversee how a museum, or a specific collection, is presented.

Curators may also come up with new ideas for shows and ways to combine existing artworks with similar themes. The Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, for example, continuously recounts the persecution experienced during World War II by combining documents, photographs, and the personal belongings of those who lived it.

Top-notch curators typically have an eye for matters that resonate with audiences and choose relevant and expressive pieces that shed light on important stories or issues.

Exhibit

You can’t get simpler than this—exhibits are displayed in museums organized by theme. Curators put together special or temporary exhibits that address certain topics on view for a limited time. However, museums often are known for their longstanding or permanent exhibits that showcase a specific period, historical event, or artistic movement. Take the American Museum of Natural History, for example. The museum’s Hall of Fossils is a permanent exhibit that takes visitors from the beginning of time to today, from dinosaurs to the future of the earth’s surface.

Artworks

The word artwork has many meanings. It can be a painting, collage, drawing, photograph, or any object with an aesthetic value. However, keep in mind that artworks are typically interpreted by those who behold them. So, what makes something truly a piece of art?

In the past, art used to be defined by its permanence. Today, however, artworks take on many forms and can even be performance-based in certain settings.

History

The word history is the study of past events—its root comes from the Greek verb “to know.”

Concerning museums, the word history is often associated with “ancient.”

Exhibitions featuring relics from Egypt or Rome, for example, showcase textiles, documents, and religious objects from those periods. However, museums are also containers for more recent headlines or happenings that, one day, will be considered history.

Think about historical events like a presidential election featuring the first female candidate or a massive global pandemic and its impact on society. Museums actively work to collect information and items that can eventually be used to paint a picture of the now.

Manuscript

The word manuscript literally means a written or typewritten composition, book, or document. A manuscript is anything submitted for publication. Examples of manuscripts on display include the Codex Amiatinus (the oldest Latin Bible) and the earliest copy of Beowulf. The Domesday Book is another famous manuscript, also known as England’s earliest public record.

Sculpture

What sets the word sculpture apart from other artworks is its three-dimensional composition. One of the most famous sculptures is Michelangelo’s David. Modern sculptures like those created by Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol depict contemporary items in artistic form. Artworks, specifically narrative works of art like paintings, can also tell a concrete story. They have depth and often take conventional items and turn them into solid objects.