National Museums Scotland

National Museums Scotland Connecting Scotland to the world and the world to Scotland. This page is maintained by National Museums Scotland’s Digital Media and Press teams.
(10524)

We love getting messages and feedback through Facebook, however, please note we can only monitor our page during office hours, Monday to Friday, so will usually be unable to respond to messages or queries sent out of hours. We cannot guarantee to answer all your questions, but will always pass them on to the relevant people within National Museums Scotland. You can also contact us through our website: www.nms.ac.uk/contactus

It might be 'back to work' time for some, but in parts of northern Scotland, the Yuletide celebrations are still going s...
12/01/2025

It might be 'back to work' time for some, but in parts of northern Scotland, the Yuletide celebrations are still going strong.

Some communities in the Outer Hebrides, Moray and the Northern Isles extend the party into January and celebrate The Old New Year on January 12. So Happy (Old) New Year to all who still mark it!

And, we don't know about you, but we like to celebrate by swotting up on winter festivals and traditions in rural Scotland.

If you want to join in, then read our new listicle about celebrations and traditions in the winter season: https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/9-ways-to-welcome-winter-in-rural-scotland ❄️

You’ll be able to see these skeklers from Shetland and much, much more.

ANNOUNCING: ‘Monkeys: Our Primate Family’ coming to the National Museum of Scotland this June 🐒 🎉Explore the remarkable ...
09/01/2025

ANNOUNCING: ‘Monkeys: Our Primate Family’ coming to the National Museum of Scotland this June 🐒 🎉

Explore the remarkable lives of our primate relatives in our upcoming exhibition. Find out:

🌴 how primates adapted to survive in different habitats

🗣 their unique methods of communication

💪 the threats they face today and how to make a difference

‘Monkeys: Our Primate Family’ brings together more than 50 species of monkeys, apes, lemurs and lorises from our Natural Science collection. It’s the first exhibition of its kind to show primate taxidermy specimens behaving like they do in the wild - including the Barbary Macaque, Western Lowland Gorilla, and ring-tailed lemur 🐵

Stay tuned for updates and tickets! If you’re a Member, well done you - you’ll get priority access for booking, and free tickets throughout.

If you’re not yet a Member, don’t panic. You can start the year off right and become one - head to our website to find out more nms.ac.uk/Membership ⭐

Listen up, archaeology fans.There’s a whole new series of Digging for Britain. And you can watch it from today (today!) ...
07/01/2025

Listen up, archaeology fans.

There’s a whole new series of Digging for Britain. And you can watch it from today (today!) on BBC iPlayer 📺

There’s one episode in particular that we’re excited about, and it’s called 🏝️ Island Treasures 🏝️

It features a little treasure from our Scottish History and Archaeology team AKA Senior Curator of Early Prehistory, Dr Hugo Anderson-Whymark.

There he is, on site at the Orkney dig with Professor Vicki Cummings from Cardiff University and presenter Professor Alice Roberts 📷

They are excavating a Neolithic burial site that’s nearly 5000 years old.

Tune in to find out more about what was uncovered… https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026rg9

06/01/2025

The colour blue gets a bad rep 😢

The January blues? Why does that have to be a BAD thing 💙

Check out this gorgeous specimen from our geology collection.

The beautiful blue of this azurite is due to copper.

If copper ore is near the Earth’s surface, it can re-combine with carbon, oxygen and sulphur to create new minerals like azurite and its sister mineral malachite (spot the green parts 💚)

But azurite is much rarer. It’s unstable in low CO2 environments, and will slowly change to malachite over time. We call this process ⭐ pseudomorphing ✨

Azurite was once used as a blue "azure" pigment in paints and to colour glass. Artisans would grind up the crystals to create a blue powder, before adding egg yolk or oil 🧑‍🎨

We certainly won't be grinding up this specimen - it's far too pretty as it is!

Got any other minerals you'd like to see? Let us know in the comments 👇

02/01/2025

BREAKING NEWS: sometimes, solids aren’t solid at all - they’re actually liquid 🤯

And you can come and see the demonstration that proves it, at the National Museum of Scotland.

This Pitch Drop Demonstration began in Edinburgh in 1902 🔬

It was designed to show that the solid looking substance in the top of the funnel…

…isn’t solid at all.

The little nuggets at the bottom have slowly dripped out of the funnel over the last (almost) 125 years.

So slowly in fact, that it’s only happened twice in that time.

Watch to find out more about the Pitch Drop demonstration 💧

And.. maybe come and see us every day for the next 125 years, just to be sure you don’t miss another drop?

💌  Who wants to see some festive snail mail?These rosy-cheeked faces are immortalised on the world’s first commercially ...
23/12/2024

💌 Who wants to see some festive snail mail?

These rosy-cheeked faces are immortalised on the world’s first commercially produced Christmas card, designed in 1843.

2,050 of them were made, and sold for the grand total of one shilling each.

We've got some lovely examples in our collection, of people sending seasons’ greetings throughout history. Swipe and send our festive well-wishes to your nearest and dearest 👉

19/12/2024

Our Tartan display has had a makeover ✨

Say hiya to the conservators, curators and members of our displays team who spruced up this section of Scotland Transformed gallery.

Objects to note include:

📖 The INFAMOUS Vestiarium Scoticum by the Sobieski Stuart brothers

📨 Mail order tartan? A letter to William Wilson & Sons of Bannockburn placing an order, dated 23 June 1812

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Souvenirs made in Mauchline

👗 and this ADORABLE nineteenth century boy’s dress. You’re going to want to put your volume on loud to hear the team’s reaction 🔊

Pop in and visit it next time you’re near the National Museum of Scotland 👋

18/12/2024

We’re getting towards the end of the year, and what a year it’s been for our Members ✨

We’ve been looking at our list to see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice (spoiler: they’re all nice) and some interesting stats caught our eye 👀

It seems that one of our lovely Members visited our Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition 28 times!

Another equally gorgeous Member booked themselves into Game On a whopping 18 times too 🕹️

We did the maths, and that’s approx 345 games of Mario Kart 64.

Thank you to all of our Members for your support this year. If you’d like to give someone the gift that keeps on giving - which this year apparently was 345 games of Mario Kart 64 - then pop over to our website to buy your Gift Membership: https://www.nms.ac.uk/support-us/membership/gift-membership

What a lovely way to start 2025.

16/12/2024

Beetles are for life, not just for Christmas

But some beetles are KINDA Christmassy 🎅

Like these super shiny specimens from our collection 🪲

They’re Scarab beetles, part of the ‘Anoplognathus’ genus, but are informally known as ‘Christmas beetles’ because they come out around this time of year 🎄

🇦🇺 If you’re reading this and thinking ‘but this simply isn’t fair - I’ve never seen a Christmas beetle!’ then that’s probably because they live in Australia and Tasmania, so you’d need to go there to be in with a chance of seeing one in the wild 🔍

Fun fact: some of these specimens are over 200 years old! They're just as dazzling as the day they arrived, as their iridescence is a result of structural colour, rather than pigment ✨

If you want to know more about our insect collection and how it is used for research, head to our website: https://www.nms.ac.uk/our-impact/national-work/training-and-guidance-for-museums/caring-for-entomology-collections/why-do-museums-collect-insects

Mary, Queen of Scots was born on this day in 1542 👑Our collection contains a rich selection of objects associated with M...
08/12/2024

Mary, Queen of Scots was born on this day in 1542 👑

Our collection contains a rich selection of objects associated with Mary - including this pendant, believed to have once belonged to her.

Mary remained Catholic after the reformation, and each side shows carved biblical scenes of the Crucifixion and Last Judgement. The loops suggest it hung from a rosary 📿

Explore more objects relating to belief in Early Modern Scotland on our website: https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/early-modern-scottish-belief-in-9-objects 📖

…and whilst you’re there, pop your feet up and treat yourself to the stories behind our objects linked to Mary too: https://www.nms.ac.uk/discover-catalogue/mary-queen-of-scots

Then, pop ‘em down again and head over to the National Museum of Scotland, to see many of them on display in our Kingdom of the Scots gallery ✨

📿 Lent by Alan W. D. McLean

06/12/2024

If there was ever a mineral that benefitted from a spot of sun, it's labradorite.

Catch it in the right light and it reveals a spectrum of colours 🌈

This effect is known as ‘labradorescence’ and occurs due to light reflecting off microscopic surfaces inside the mineral. The different colours you see are controlled by the distance between these surfaces

Labradorescence only forms under very specific circumstances. The mineral needs to be of a precise elemental composition and the crystals need to cool slowly enough to allow the internal structure to form 💎

This means that while labradorite is found in many places (including Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿), the truly flashy specimens are found in Canada, Russia and Norway ✨

Got any minerals you'd like to see (weather and sunlight permitting)? Let us know in the comments 👇

It’s December! Which means that we’re officially allowed to celebrate the ✨festive season ✨And to kick things off, here’...
03/12/2024

It’s December! Which means that we’re officially allowed to celebrate the ✨festive season ✨

And to kick things off, here’s a selection of snowy scenes from the Scottish Life Archive to get you in the mood.

The mood is: ‘ready to think about Scotland’s rural past’ 👇

🛷 This photograph likely features Lady Henrietta’s children, sledging in the grounds of Montrave House, Fife. Henrietta took up photography after the birth of her seventh child and captured over 1000 images of Scottish country life

🥶 Could call this a ‘cold snap’. This was taken in Braemar c.1895. That winter, Braemar captured the lowest ever recorded temperature in the UK at minus 27.2°C

🐴 More scenes from a snowy day in Braemar c.1895. These guys might have stopped for a snowball fight to break up a day of hard work

🎅 Ho, ho, ho! Back in in 1909 Mr Henry Watson brought some seasonal cheer to Burntisland in his Santa costume and a stick full of gifts. That’s what we’re asking Santa for this year - a nice new stick

☃️ Dashing through the snow. In a one-horse open sleigh. O'er the fields we go, to Larchgrove House, Balerno, c.1903

If you liked these images then, great news: you can send them to your nearest and dearest. We have popped some downloadable cards on our website: https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/facilities/scottish-life-archive/festive-scenes-from-the-scottish-life-archive

💌 Seasons greetings!

30/11/2024

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Happy St Andrew’s Day 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

What better way to celebrate than with our national drink.

Believe it or not, this ashet (that’s Scots for ‘serving tray’) is composed entirely of waste products from the whisky making process. It’s a new acquisition to the collection, and tells the story of how makers in the whisky industry are finding ways to make their processes more sustainable.

♻ The tray’s base is made from ‘draff’ - a waste malt material left over from the alcohol production process. The draff was sourced from Arbikie Distillery, based in Inverkeilor, Angus.

🔨The upcycled copper rim was sourced from one of the world's oldest fabricators of whisky stills, McMillan Coppersmiths in East Lothian.

👨‍🎨 The maker, Aymeric Renoud Draff studio is a designer and fabricator based in Dundee. He specialises in creating bespoke pieces of furniture and frequently collaborates with distilleries and breweries.

Watch how these makers worked together to create something beautiful for our National Collection: https://youtu.be/MzNsHjEYX-8

🥃 Sláinte!

28/11/2024

If there’s one thing we do well, it’s rural history.

Luckily, there’s not just one thing we do well, so that’s fine.

But today, we’ve been exploring the collections at the National Museum of Rural Life with a behind-the-scenes look in the object stores, thanks to our curator of Modern and Rural History, Ailsa.

We’ve seen baskets.

We’ve seen flails.

We’ve seen shelves and shelves of artefacts dedicated solely to the art of milking.

The study store houses over 6000 objects - milk based and otherwise - and lining the walls are beautifully crafted scale models of agricultural machines and equipment that date back to the 19th century 👩‍🌾

Visit the National Museum of Rural Life and learn about the land, people and ways of working that have shaped Scotland’s rural history. More information and tickets are available on our website 🚜 : https://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-rural-life

There are (literally!) thousands of stories to choose from inside the museum - so let us know which tales you’d like us to tell, and objects you’d like to hear more about, in the comments below 👇 10 points if it’s milk.

26/11/2024

Deck the halls with boughs of…Dolly? 🐑

Our tree is UP

And it’s sustainable.

♻️ Our natural tree is from a supplier in East Lothian, and the decorations have been reused from previous years.

Is it too early to put up a tree? Debatable! But it’s never too early to enjoy a bit of sustainable seasonal cheer 💚

Come see it at the National Museum of Scotland ✨

22/11/2024

Enjoy this little selection of objects from the Galloway Hoard. As a treat.

Many of these treasures will be going on tour to Australia next year. Lucky them!

Visitors will be able to see the Viking-age hoard at the South Australian Museum in early February 2025.

But for anyone not in Australia, head to our website to catch up with the latest in the research into the hoard: https://www.nms.ac.uk/collections/departments/scottish-history-archaeology/projects/unwrapping-the-galloway-hoard

Address

Chambers Street
Edinburgh
EH11JF

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when National Museums Scotland posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Museum

Send a message to National Museums Scotland:

Videos

Share

Category

Our Story

COVID-19

In response to the impact of COVID-19 (Coronavirus) we have made the decision to close all our museums to the public from Tuesday 17 March at 5pm until further notice. This will include the National Museum of Scotland, the National Museum of Flight, the National Museum of Rural Life and the National War Museum at Edinburgh Castle.

All scheduled exhibitions and events will be postponed until further notice, including the display of the Declaration of Arbroath. We will make a further announcement once new display dates have been agreed. The national collections within our care will continue to be monitored and made secure during this time.

At National Museums Scotland, we care for collections of national and international importance, preserving them, interpreting them and making them accessible to as many people as possible. You can visit us at our four museum sites: the National Museum of Scotland and National War Museum, in Edinburgh, the National Museum of Flight, in East Lothian and the National Museum of Rural Life in East Kilbride.