Museum label

A typical museum label from the De Young Museum in San Francisco

A museum label is a label describing an object exhibited in a museum or one introducing a room or area.

At a minimum, museum labels identify the creator, title, date, location, and materials of the work, insofar as these can be known. Didactic information that can be related to wider ideas such as the history, culture, interpretation, and context of the work may also be included.

The first known museum labels are from Babylonian princess and high priestess Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum and date to circa 530 BCE.

References

  1. 1 2 Writing Exhibit Labels / object labels Archived 2011-04-30 at the Wayback Machine
  2. 1 2 The Enduring Label — How Shall We Label Our Exhibit Today? Applying the Principles of On-Line Publishing to an On-Site Exhibition
  3. ↑ "Museums Explained: Definitions". www.tfaoi.org. Retrieved 2025-04-14.
  4. ↑ Woolley, Leonard (1982). Ur 'of the Chaldees'. P. R. S. Moorey, Leonard, Sir Woolley (Revised enlarged ed.). London: Herbert. ISBN 0-906969-21-2. OCLC 12460122. The room was a museum of local antiquities maintained by the princess Belshalti-Nannar, and in the collection was this clay drum, the earliest museum label known...
  5. ↑ Casey, W. Wilson (2009). Firsts: Origins of everyday things that changed the world. New York: Alpha. ISBN 978-1-59257-924-2. OCLC 432407790. Around 530 B.C.E. in Ur, an educational museum containing a collection of labeled antiquities was founded by Ennigaldi-Nannathe, daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia.