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Place-based artefacts

Quick tips

Key things to remember when looking for artefacts and images online:

Know your topic, time period and geographical location:

  • Context is key: Identify the main topics, themes or events, and think about who is likely to have created or be responsible for the sources you are interested in and the language they would have used at the time.
  • Use secondary sources (books and journal articles) and their references about your topic to find the images they use. Many use images to illustrate their research.
  • Learn the language of your topic with dictionaries, encyclopedias and thesauri.
  • Define additional concrete search terms, particularly those related to geographical location places, events, dates, people or organisations involved in your topic because this information is used to organise or describe artefacts and images.
  • Make sure you are looking at material from the correct time period. Use the Advanced search mode to search by a date range. This will identify some works published during that time period.

Browse the collection or start broad and filter down 

As they are not typically text‐based, artefacts and images can be harder to find using keyword searches. They may be easier to find if you filter a quick or basic search by creation date, geographical location, format, subject area, creator or other known criteria and browse the collection from there.

Archaeology and cultural heritage collections and data

In addition to being able to search by site title and object name, advanced search also enables you to expand your search by extra fields. Think about these fields before you start your search in order to get better results.  These fields include:

  • Site type - historical (archaeological), maritime (shipwreck), maritime (non-shipwreck)
  • Object form - e.g., axe, anchor, boot, candle, flake, writing slate
  • Material - e.g., ceramic, glass, metal, textile
  • Local Government Authority - e.g., Darebin, Maribyrnong, Port Phillip

Remember: Start with a simple keyword search if you are new to the topic.

Victorian Collections

Victorian Collections facilitates access to the collections of a large number of often quite small Victorian community organisations, historical societies, and cultural heritage institutions. It is new and quickly growing and evolving.

Museum Victoria Collections

Use the Museum Victoria Collections site to explore the natural sciences and humanities collections of Museums Victoria in Australia, featuring collections of zoology, geology, palaeontology, history, indigenous cultures and technology.

Find Creative Commons and Public Domain media

Content which has a Creative Commons licence may be free to download, adapt, distribute, and transmit without having to ask permission.  

You should always check the exact terms of the licence before using an image.