Welcome back to GLOBAL MUSEUM, your award-winning & free online compendium, read weekly since 1998 by 8,000+ readers in more than 201 countries.

** The purrrplexing story of the British Museum cats

The story of how the British Museum became a cat haven, and how they eventually came to be on the Museum payroll, thanks in large part to a British Museum cleaner affectionately referred to as the ‘Cat Man’.

** Art Gallery of Ontario dusts off the cobwebs

Over the next 18 months, the AGO will reinstall its entire permanent collection, unearthing lost treasures along the way.

** Art Museum’s animal mummies are no dummies

The trouble with mummies — short of unravelling them, there’s no telling exactly what’s under the crumbling strips of linen, at least not without the help of modern technology.

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** How Ants Figured Out Farming Millions of Years Before Humans

Itty-bitty ants started farming fungus for food — probably not too long after the Chicxulub meteor impact caused the mass extinction event that obliterated up to three-quarters of the rest of Earth’s plants and animals.

** How Traditional Spanish Religious Art Was Incorporated Into Picasso’s ‘Guernica’

Picasso’s choice of jute as opposed to any other support for Guernica and his understanding that the work was a propaganda piece destined to travel suggests that he understood full well the sarga tradition; it was in his Spanish Catholic DNA.

** Russia’s regional collections get left out in the cold

Works by Wassily Kandinsky and other Russian and European masters have been left out in the cold—literally—as a foundation created by a Russian bishop with ties to Vladimir Putin works to establish up to 25 new displays dedicated to patriotism in cities across the country.

** Museum director resigns amid protest aimed at Lt. Gov.

Lt. Gov. accused of using a Lower Pontalba Building apartment and space in other state museum buildings in the French Quarter for his personal benefit and engaging in a pattern of political interference with the agency's operations.

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** A new perspective on the Franco-German War of 1870-1871

Overshadowed as it is by the two World Wars, the war between France and Germany from 1870 to 1871 is a topic many French and German people are not familiar with, even though it represents a key moment in the relationship between these two countries, around which the future of Europe would be built.

** These Paleo Pets Made Fossil Hunting Less Lonely

In the solitary hunt for bones, furry companions provide company, act as field assistants and sometimes even make the ultimate sacrifice.

** Stolen Normal Rockwell Painting Returned After 40 Years

Stolen more than 40 years ago, a folksy painting of a slumbering child by American illustrator Norman Rockwell has been returned to its rightful owners by the FBI.

** Little-Known Crucifix By Michelangelo Returns Home To Florentine Church

A painted wooden crucifix by Michelangelo Buonarrotti has returned to its original home, the Basilica of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito in Florence, after a fresh restoration and a year on the road.

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** The Metropolitan Museum Is Finally Displaying Native Art in Its American Wing

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced last week that, for the first time in its 147-year history, it will display a major collection of Native-American art in its American wing.

** Museum visitor calls removal of Booth statue ‘ludicrous’

The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum has removed a statue of Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, from the plaza in front of the building because it sent the wrong message.

** Museum asks fans of Kermit, Elmo to help pay for exhibit

A New York City museum is asking fans of Jim Henson's Muppets to help pay for an exhibition featuring original puppets of beloved characters like Elmo, Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.

** Director of Poland’s Second World War Museum dismissed

The Polish historian Pawel Machcewicz has been dismissed from his role as director of the newly-opened Second World War Museum in Gdansk, one of the world’s largest historical museums.

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** Fascinating Figures from the Metropolitan Museum’s Collection Data

Roeder shows not only how the collection breaks down by medium, region of origin, and era of creation, but also how information like the time at which objects were acquired gives a sense of the museum’s evolving collecting practices.

** A Giant Financial Gamble For Art’s King Of Controversy

The show is widely seen as Damien Hirst’s attempt, at 51, to kick-start his career, which has suffered since 2008, when the financial and art markets crashed.

** Sweden's new Museum of Failure

All the exhibits are considered innovation failures, from coffee-flavoured Coca Cola and a pen for women to a device for writing tweets.

** Kentucky Coal Mining Museum switches to solar power

The Communications Director wasn’t blind to the incongruity of a coal museum being powered by solar energy, asserting that there’s a symbiosis between the two.

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** Ancient Cannibals Didn’t Eat Just for the Calories

A researcher studying cannibalism in the Paleolithic era estimated that a human body would provide an average of 125,000 to 144,000 calories, if consumed.

** Portal to Progress: Transformations in Technology, Diversity in Dress

Join us for "Portal to Progress: Transformations in Technology, Diversity in Dress," the Costume Society of America's Annual Meeting and National Symposium

** Carnegie Hall Preserves History in Thousands of Theatre Programs

The Carnegie Hall Archives was established in 1986, in anticipation of the Hall's 100th anniversary

** Migration, Home, and Belonging

Call For Papers - International Committee for Museums of Ethnography (ICME) Annual Conference

** This Week's Horoscopes

Libra - A man’s home is his castle. This week prepare to have your castle stormed by a marauding horde of phone bills.

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