Vere Gordon Childe collection

Named after V. Gordon Childe (the first Abercromby Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Edinburgh from 1927 to 1946 and the excavator of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Skara Brae), the collection began as a visionary reference resource for students of prehistory. It was later enriched by Childe’s successors, Stuart Piggott and Dennis Harding, as well as through significant external donations.

Today, the collection spans continents and cultures, with artefacts from the Indus Valley, the Near East, Egypt, the Mediterranean, and Europe north of the Alps, alongside important ethnographic materials. Its holdings are as diverse as they are distinctive, from everyday objects such as multi-functional stone and bone tools (the prehistoric equivalent of the Swiss army knife) to rare survivals such as textile fragments from the Neolithic Swiss Lake Villages, each object offering new opportunities for discovery, research, and hands-on learning.