In the Museum of London there is a white earthenware plate bearing the inscription ‘You & I are Earth 1661’. Recovered in modern times from a London sewer, the plate is made of earth; it has come out of the earth and with an unwavering gaze (or glaze) confronts the viewer with their own earthliness. It is a reminder of mortality, at once accusing and sympathetic: not ‘as I am, so will you be’, but ‘as I am, so are you’. For me, this plate has always distilled the shock of recognition and excitement inherent in the study of material culture: the way ‘things’ can stitch up time, joining two very distant moments and people through a single object.