Help find CERN’s missing history

TOPIC:At CERN

Help find CERN’s missing history

Written by:

CERN Heritage Collections Team

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20 August, 2026

The CERN Heritage Collection holds over 350 objects that help tell the story of CERN’s scientific and technical achievements. Many of these objects go on display in the Science Gateway and are loaned to museums all over the world. For some of these objects, key information is missing: what they were used for, who used them, when and why. In other cases, an object’s location is unknown.

This is where the CERN community can help. Objects without recorded context lose their meaning over time and end up being listed as ‘unknown’, but for each of these objects, there may be someone on site today who does know exactly what it is. You can view a list of missing and unknown objects here, and see the full collection of exhibition objects here.

Please contact heritage.collections@cern.ch if you can:

• Identify an unlabelled or unclearly labelled object
• Provide details on how something was used and who used it (an individual or an experiment)
• Share photos, documents or memories connected to an object
• Point us towards an object whose location is unknown

Preserving CERN’s heritage depends on the memory and knowledge of the people who built, ran and worked with this equipment. Help share this history with future generations.

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