Every object that has ever been, or that ever will be, has somewhere within it the date on which it was made.
Not everyone can read these hidden fingerprints of time straight away, they are often invisible, but they are there.They can be tiny symbols hardly visible to the eye, the shadow of constant changes within the object’s structure and sometimes not even in the object itself!
They’re always there and they can be found if you just know how to look. Finding these dates is called dating and there are all sorts of techniques to discover the age of things.
Fingerprints of Time offers you an interactive experience to explore how we find the age of everything.
So come in and be a date detective.
Click here to submit your image of the oldest thing you can think of .
What our Visitors Think
’It’s very interesting and the children have enjoyed it. We’ve learned a lot and we liked being able to compare the same objects from different eras.’
’It’s good because there’s lots of stuff to do - you’re not just running round being bored!’
Visitors to Fingerprints of Time at the Yorkshire Museum, York