Distinctions within traditions
Yin Yang, Janus and the Book of the Dead belong to particular traditions. Their paired or contrasting forms are points of comparison, not evidence that those traditions teach the same doctrine.
Explore the artifacts, discoveries and ideas that shape our understanding of the world.
10 archives
100 artifacts
From ancient light and meteorite grains to footprints, creation images and Darwin’s branching sketch: different ways of investigating beginnings.










Paired forms, opposing forces and complementary descriptions, examined through religious images, living structures and physical experiments.










Connections between things often treated as separate, approached through cultural knowledge, mathematics, physics and contemplative traditions.










Fossils, living forms and images of life, followed by the unresolved search for life beyond Earth.










Extinction, preserved remains, burial and remembrance: what endings leave behind, and how people respond to mortality.










Sunlight, living systems, fire and nuclear technology, alongside cultural accounts that use a different language for vitality and transformation.










Cycles, calendars and physical limits, with trees, diagrams and cultural works that make duration intelligible.










Causes, predictions and the limits of knowledge, explored through philosophical arguments, divination, mechanisms and physics.










Natural records, cultural memory and recording technologies: how traces endure, and how people learn to read them.










Ten ordinary words organise an enquiry into self, relationship, attention, action and memory. This is an experiential archive, not a sequence of historical objects.