Selection criteria
Why these objects?
The project is not simply interested in very old things. A younger but meticulously documented object may be scientifically more useful than an ancient artefact with no trustworthy history.
01
A reconstructable history
It must be possible to say where the object has been and in whose hands. Not perfectly, and not without gaps - but the gaps must be identifiable as gaps rather than papered over with a plausible story.
02
Repairs that are known rather than hidden
Every long-lived object has been altered. What separates a good candidate from a poor one is whether the alterations are dated and described. An undocumented repair does not merely leave a hole in the record; it silently invalidates every comparison across it.
03
A repeatedly measurable physical response
The object must do something that can be characterised more than once, in the same way, without damaging it. This excludes a great many beautiful things, and it excludes them for a good reason.
04
Lawful access
Somebody must be able to permit observation, and that permission must be capable of being given properly rather than assumed. An object we could never lawfully approach is not a candidate, however interesting.
05
Identifiable custody
There must be a person or an institution able to authorise study and to be answerable for the object over time. Divided or unclear custody is one of the commonest reasons an otherwise excellent object is unusable.
06
Comparable related objects
A single specimen supports no inference. What makes a candidate strong is the existence of siblings: objects of the same type, period, and workmanship, against which it can be compared. A unique object is, for our purposes, one of the weakest kinds there is.
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What is not on the list
Notice what is missing from this list. Age appears nowhere as a criterion in its own right, and neither does rarity, value, beauty, or fame. Those are excellent reasons for a museum to hold an object and poor reasons for us to study it.
A well-documented parish bell recast in 1921, with the foundry invoice still in a parish file and forty comparable bells within a hundred kilometres, is a better candidate than almost anything famous.