The use of 3-D artefacts as sources to study history is not intuitive. In the context of the historical sciences, their examination is rarely taught at universities, in contrast to the attention devoted to methods for interpreting textual and visual sources. In this contribution, we reflect on a course, developed over several years in a museum setting, aimed at initiating 3-D object-based inquiry through the study of artefacts from the physical sciences. Our experiences teaching the course have led to three insights. First, we suggest that the museum as a teaching space is uniquely positioned, through its resources, for initiation to the study of artefacts. Yet, teaching with objects is also possible outside the space of the museum. Second, guiding participants toward the methodologies of expert inquiry provides an opportunity for reflection on the mechanisms of the attribution of significance to objects, on their selection and on the potential biases that can arise within accumulated expertise or connoisseurship. Finally, for the discipline of the history of science, our experience suggests that to enter new avenues through the study of artefacts, historians need to “commune” with those who drive museum collections, with their implicit knowledge and with their hands, visible and invisible.
Bloemer et al. (Mon,) studied this question.