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Explore Global Cultures

Discover North Carolina’s only museum dedicated to the study of global cultures. Explore stories of humanity, from ancient archaeological sites to the celebrations and struggles of today. Learn about people from around the world through their everyday objects, ceremonial artifacts, and visual arts.

Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00am to 4:30pm. Admission is free.
Find the Museum on the Wake Forest campus.

Featured Exhibits

Museum of World Cultures exhibit

Museum of World Cultures: Highlights from the UNC-Wilmington Collection
Through February 14, 2026

archery exhibit

Archery: Hunting, Warfare and Identity
Through June 20, 2026

See All Exhibits

Upcoming Events

Mosque with minarets

Islam in the United States: Challenge and Resilience

Thursday, February 12, 6pm

The Lumbee River Archaeology Project

Friday, February 20, 5pm

Currency Exhibits Open

Tuesday, March 17

Recent News Stories

Paired Currency Exhibits to Open in MarchJanuary 29, 2026
New Exhibit Explores Aboriginal AustraliaJanuary 29, 2026
Lam Announces Archaeology in the Americas Lecture SeriesAugust 18, 2025

See All News Stories

Explore the Collection with the Artifact of the Month

Maasai ShieldFebruary 2, 2026
Aboriginal Australian BowlJanuary 7, 2026
Chinese ScrollDecember 1, 2025

See All Artifact of the Month

Find a Craft Activity with Cultures Up Close

See All Cultures Up Close

Stay in Touch

Receive updates on exhibits and events from the Lam Museum

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Feb 4

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Mark your calendar for next Thursday at 6pm, when WFU Assistant Chaplain for Muslim Life Imran Haq will join us at the Museum to present "Islam in the United States: Challenge and Resilience." We hope to see you here!

#lammuseum #Islam #wakethearts

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Feb 2

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We finally made it through January, and now it's time for our February #ArtifactOfTheMonth! This month, we're featuring a Maasai shield from Kenya dating to the early 20th century.

The #Maasai are a cultural group of semi-nomadic pastoralists with a population of approximately one million people living primarily in southern #Kenya and northern Tanzania.

This type of shield, known as elongo, provided both physical and spiritual protection for Maasai hunters and warriors in their duties protecting people and cattle against intruders and dangerous wild animals. A spiritual leader, called the Oloibon, imbued each shield with enhanced protective powers through charms called entasim to ensure the warrior’s success.

Maasai warriors made their own shields by sewing cow or buffalo hide from an animal they killed onto a wooden frame to form a convex oval shape. The wooden handle in the center of the back side was traditionally wrapped in leather strips for better grip. The shield was then painted with dyes made from mixing ashes with colored clays.

The multicolored geometric designs of this shield follow a typical pattern with a center line made up of triangle motifs. On one side of the line, the background is red, and the other is black. Crescent shapes with different interior patterns appear on both sides. These designs are called sirata and indicate the holder’s place in a complex lineage system. The decorations mark this type of Maasai shield as a prestige object in addition to its practical purpose. Contemporary Maasai warriors no longer use this type of shield, and the specific meanings of the designs have largely been lost to time.

This shield is on exhibit in Archery: Hunting, Warfare, and Identity through June 20, 2026.

#lammuseum #blackhistorymonth

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Jan 30

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The Museum will be closed Saturday, January 31, due to more winter weather. Stay tuned for any changes to our schedule next week. We hope everyone stays safe and warm!

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Jan 29

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Jan 23

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Out of an abundance of caution, the Museum will be closed tomorrow, Saturday, Jan. 24. We anticipate being closed early next week as well due to the coming storm. We will post additional information as we are able. You can always check the banner at the top of our website, which will appear if there are changes to our regular operating hours. Stay safe, everyone!

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Jan 16

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The Museum will be closed this weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Check our stories for an opportunity to participate in a day of service in honor of Dr. King.

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Jan 14

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A glimpse behind the scenes as we prep for our new archery exhibit opening Jan. 27!

#lammuseum #archery #wakethearts #exhibit #exhibitprep

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Jan 7

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Our January #ArtifactOfTheMonth is this Aboriginal Australian bowl in the shape of an elongated oval known as a coolamon. Coolamons are made from hardwood trees where a strip of the outer bark is removed and then molded over a fire to create the curved sides. Once the coolamon is shaped and dried, they are often decorated with engravings and symbols on the exterior portion of the wood, as seen here. This type of shallow, multipurpose bowl was traditionally used by Aboriginal women to winnow grains, carry fruit, nuts, or water, and to cradle babies. For traveling long distances, the women carried coolamons on their heads, often with a ring pad made of grass, feathers, or hair to support the bowl. In contemporary Aboriginal artwork, the coolamon is a symbol of femininity emphasizing the importance of women and children.

This bowl was purchased in the late 1990s at the Warlukurlangae Artists Aboriginal Association in Alice Springs, Australia. Despite the traditionally practical uses of coolamons, this one was always intended to be seen as a piece of art.

You can see this bowl in person in the exhibit “Return to Sender? Aboriginal Cultural Heritage and Repatriation” through August 15, 2026.

#Australia #AboriginalAustralia #AboriginalCulture #coolamon

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Jan 6

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Dec 12

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The Museum is now closed for Winter Break. We look forward to seeing you in 2026!

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Dec 9

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This week is the last chance to see "Life after Death: Celebrating Day of the Dead" before it closes on Friday. Don't miss it!

#lammuseum #wakethearts #DayoftheDead #díadelosmuertos

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Dec 5

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The Museum will be closed today due to inclement weather.

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Dec 2

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Did you know that the funding for our exhibits comes almost exclusively from our members? This #GivingTuesday, we hope you'll consider a Lam Museum membership. We literally can't do this without you! Visit the link in our bio to join today.

#lammuseum #museummembership

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Dec 1

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Our December #ArtifactOfTheMonth is a Chinese hanging scroll containing two remounted album leaves with watercolor paintings of locust tree branches by well-known Qing Dynasty artist Ju Lian (1828-1904). The top (left) painting is dated 1876, and the inscription reads, "Painted in the manner of Xinluo shanren, I inscribe this for the esteemed sir Jingqiao for his comments. Ju Lian painted.” The seal is inscribed Guquan, meaning Ancient Spring, which is Ju Lian’s courtesy name. The lower (right) leaf was painted in 1873, and Ju Lian wrote his pseudonym Geshan laoren or "Old Man of the Divided Mountain."

The two album leaves were collected and remounted in 1941 by Mabel Yuk-Sein Young, the wife of Jen Yu-wen, a Chinese historian and public official. She added the paragraph below the paintings, indicating that the hanging scroll was a gift to someone working with the YWCA. This matches the Lam Museum’s records, as this scroll is one of more than 100 objects in the Museum’s collection acquired by Marion Dudley of Wilmington, NC, who served as a missionary with the YWCA in China between 1927 and 1947.

This #Chinese scroll is one of a group of six scrolls that are the subject of the Museum’s 2025 Conservation Fund campaign, and we request your assistance to have them professionally conserved. The scrolls are frequently used to teach about Asian artistic traditions, visual storytelling, the history of missionaries, and relations between the United States and China. All six scrolls are very fragile, and it is increasingly difficult to use them in teaching without causing more damage. Conservation work must be done to stabilize and mount them, so they do not need to be rolled and unrolled, thus guaranteeing their long-term preservation. The help of supporters like you is essential to complete the conservation of these important artifacts. Learn more about the Conservation Fund and contribute today!

Research for this post was conducted by Xinyu (Lavender) Wang (’24).

#lammuseum #China #Chinesescroll #chinesepainting

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Nov 25

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The Museum will be closed Wednesday through Sunday for Thanksgiving weekend. We look forward to seeing you next week! 🦃

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Nov 18

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This is the final week to visit "Fragments of Changsha: Medieval China in Miniature." Don't miss your chance to see these fascinating pieces that are more than 1,000 years old!

#lammuseum #wakethearts #chineseceramics #China #tangdynasty #exhibit #free

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Nov 17

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Tomorrow at 5pm, the Museum will serve as the venue for a lecture sponsored by our friends in @wfuhistory. We hope to see you here!

#lammuseum #wakethearts #Japan

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Nov 12

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We hope to see you tomorrow for the last of our Archaeology in the Americas Lecture Series with Wake alum Dr. Alice Wright!

#lammuseum #wakethearts #archaeology #free #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth #ncarchaeology

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