History buffs, rejoice! It’s possible to collect historical artifacts without having to file for bankruptcy as a result. You can begin to put together your own small museum, turning corners of your home into reliquaries of the past, even if you aren’t flooded with disposable income.
Why collect artifacts? Because history is about more than textbooks and dates and abstract theories. It’s written into the physical world we inhabit. History is real, and it happened to real people in real physical places. That’s part of why monuments, ruins, and artifacts matter. They put us in touch with the visceral reality of history and remind us of our place in it. As G. K. Chesterton wrote in “All I Survey”: “The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
