Search

Search help

Searching for multiple terms

• If you enter more than one search term in the search box, your search will retrieve results that contain all those terms. For example, enter ‘Iraq Iran', to find all object records containing both ‘Iraq' AND ‘Iran'
• If you want to search for either one term or another, enter your search terms separated by ‘or'. For example, enter ‘Japan or China' to find all object records containing either Japan OR China.

Partial word search

• Enter your term followed by an asterisk (*). For example, entering ‘Islam*' would return results for all records containing words beginning with ‘Islam', such as ‘Islam', ‘Islamic', and ‘Islamabad'. Searching is always case insensitive

• For example, searching for ‘India' is the same as searching for ‘india'.

Searching for a specific word or phrase

• Enter your term within double quotation marks (""). For example, to search for the term Abbasid period, enter "Abbasid period".

Excluding a term from your search

• Enter the term you want to search for, then a minus or subtraction sign, followed by the term you wish to exclude from your search. For example, if you want to search for records with the term ‘stoneware' but exclude records with the term ‘green', enter ‘stoneware -green'.

Searching in non-Latin alphabets

• It is possible to search using non-Latin alphabets. We sometimes record this for an object's original title, a person's name, or an inscription on an object.
• We do not currently translate all information into other languages.

Note: Objects with an online inventory-level record will not feature in search results if certain advanced search fields, or search result filters, are used. Find out more.