Welcome to the Museum of the Known World – discover two million years of human history and culture.
Welcome to the Museum of the Known World – discover two million years of human history and culture.
Catalog Entry: The story of William H.W. Packet’s Aurora Expedition, as told by the explorer himself, in a latterly discovered diary shedding new light on this historic journey.
Catalog Entry: A punny broadsheet ballad in which a sexual situation is alluded to in terms of a captain capturing a pirate ship.
TO EXPLORE THE Museum of the Known World (MoKW) viewers are encouraged to click through the ‘MUSEUM GALLERY‘ found via the left tab (top left on mobile).
I also recommend looking over the ‘EXAMPLE ARTIFACT‘, accessed via the bottom tab, and the in-universe Museum history, ‘MUSEUM INFORMATION‘, accessed via the right tab (bottom left on mobile).
The ‘TOP LEFT‘ square takes you back home, The ‘TOP RIGHT‘ to ‘The Discovery of Ser. Williamsland‘ and the ‘BOTTOM RIGHT‘ square gives you access to some META credits, specific to each page.
Enjoy exploring!
Some of the artifacts in the MoKW contain violence, sexual content, misogyny, and racism.
The MoKW is a world-building project, multi-media exercise, and website, all not-so-neatly rolled into one singular thing.
In the most basic sense, it’s an alternate history earth, taking place primarily in a time period roughly equivalent to 1800’s Europe (although it jumps all over) whose central ‘gimmick’, is a series of colossal floating city spheres, inspired by Buckminster Fullers, Cloud 9 Spheres.
On a deeper level, the MoKW is an attempt to grapple with themes of exploitation, violence, history vs memory, and loss.
The MoKW itself, is a virtual gallery of artifacts and ephemera analogous to contemporary virtual galleries found in the British Museum or The Met.
Some people may hear that I used ANY A.I. in this work and immediately turn away from it—if that’s you, that’s totally fine, stick to your principles.
In all honesty, when I first started this project it was going to be for a D&D campaign, which has a much lower bar of “integrity” shall we call it, in the use of A.I. I was also much more caviler in it’s use, and comfortable using AI in ways I am now not. I have gone back through an removed most of the A.I. works I made in the earlier parts of this project, modified the rest, and of course labeled and cited anything that uses A.I.
Even if an image was generated with Midjourney lets say, I am always going over top of A.I. images with graphic design in Photoshop, printing/scanning them back in, adding dust/grain/scratches/paper folds/etc. and sometimes combining A.I. works with found primary source documents. Also, given the nature of this work, prompts and images are essentially never generated with works made by artist’s before around the ~1900s, and if they are, credit is always given.
The one exception is the code for this website. I used a modified version of WordPress Elementor, and do almost all of the CSS myself, however basically all of the JavaScript is written by chatGPT.
If that bothers you, I totally get it, but keep in mind, I have no background in web-design, don’t do it for a living, and found this was the easiest solution.
Authors Name.
(Country, Town, City DATE-DATE Town, City).
Publishers Name.
(Country, Town, City DATE-DATE).
Commercial color lithograph.
Ticket: 3 1/3 x 2 6/10 in.
(H32/dn20) (H32/dn20).
REF. 1.3145.
…who at all helped with this project thank you…
A (semi)-informal, completely arbitrary, unordered list of some of the people that provided the most feedback, support, or otherwise for this project. (Click on the names for their socials or websites).
My Rock. The person who has always been here for me, and my best friend.
Someone I could always rely on for feed-back and advice, and a dear friend.
Someone who always pushed me, and a dear friend.
The actual GOAT of this project. A wonderful moderator and admin in the World Anvil CSS discord. They helped get this project going by providing so much free advice with CSS / World Anvil. Such a great person. Please check out their incredible World Anvil!
Lucas (and his whole team at WaySpire) have been incredibly helpful in getting this whole website running and keeping it so.
Wonderful YouTuber who helped me with a couple of bits of tricky CSS, and with some backend stuff.
Citations / Inspirations on this site are handled on an Artifact to Artifact basis. Listed below are the direct citations for this homepage, as well as some more indirect inspirations.
Some of the language of this page is taken from the MoMA’s Wikipedia / Website —as well as more obviously the MoKW nomenclature.
Some of the language of this page is taken from the British Museum’s Wikipedia / Website.
The background is code modified from Loktar’s, “Scrolling Terrain and Shooting Stars” CodePen, using the help of ChatGPT.
Direct inspiration for the look of this site.
Direct inspiration for the look of this site.
Main source for inspiration for this site.
Inspiration for the look of this site.
Direct inspiration for this site.
Inspiration for the look of this site, as well as just a huge inspiration for me as a person.
Inspiration for this work as a whole.
Below you will find a very brief visual history of this website. For more info visit my Dev-Blog.
THE MUSEUM OF the Known World (MoKW) houses the largest collection of art, technology, history, and science in the Firmosan Republic. Explore the story of human culture from its beginnings to the very present.[1]
Established in 112 B.A. / Year 888, by renowned explorer and naturalist Ser. William H.W. Packet and his wife, Edith Packet, as a “public collection of antiquities“[2] and originally known as the Packet Institution for Education and Discovery, upon Ms. Packets death, in 89 B.A. the Packet’s trust was purchased by the Firmosan government whom in 01 A.A. / Year 1000 established 09 Ser. William St. as the MoKWs permanent residence,[3] and began to slowly expand the Packets initial collection through acquisition and discovery.[4]
Each and every artifact in the MoKW, tells it’s own unique story, transposed across culture, time, history, and place. We encourage our guests to explore the MoKW at their own special pace and find the ideas and themes that connect all of these unique stories.
Ser. William H.W. Packet was an explorer, naturalist, and captain to grandest expedition of the age of sail, the Aurora Expedition. His wife, Edith Packet, was a philanthropist, writer, and often considered the first female lepidopterist, but by far their greatest legacy is that of the MoKW.
The MoKW sits in the heart of Newfield’s historic downtown. During the 1000 World’s Progress Expo, the Artifacts of The Known World Exhibit debuted in this exact location. Following it’s success the building remained, and the MoKW was born.
The MoKW continues to add new objects and artifacts to its collection to this very day. The Museum of the Known World: Collection Department participates in excavations across the globe in collaboration with partners in host countries.
THE MUSEUM OF the Known Word (MoKW) houses the largest collection of art, technology, history, and science in all lands seen and unseen. Explore the story of human culture from its beginnings to the very present.¹
Established in 112 B.A. by renowned explorer and scientist Ser. William H.W. Packet and his wife, Edith Packet, as a “public collection of antiquities”² and originally known as the Packet Institution for Education and Discovery, upon her death in 90 B.A. Lady Packets trust was purchased by the Firmosan government whom in 00 A.A. established 09 Ser. William St. as the MoKW‘s permanent residence,³ and began to slowly expand the Packets initial collection through acquisition and discovery.⁴
Each and every artifact in the MoKW, tells it’s own unique story, across culture, time and history. Explore at your own pace and find the ideas and themes that connect all of these unique stories.
The MoKW sits in the heart of Newfield’s historic downtown. During the 1000 World’s Fair Expo, the Artifacts of The Known World exhibit debuted in this exact location. Following it’s success the MoKW was born.
Ser. William Packet sailed from BLANK to BLANK, and lived with the natives of BLANK, but by far his greatest legacy is that of the MoKW. Read more about Ser. Packet and his wife here.
The MoKW sits in the heart of Newfield’s historic downtown. During the 1000 World’s Fair Expo, the Artifacts of The Known World exhibit debuted in this exact location. Following it’s success the MoKW was born.
09 SER WILLIAMS ST, NEWFIELDS, FIRMOSA, MUSEUM OF THE KNOWN WORLD.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Et cupiditate quis eos blanditiis deleniti eum nobis placeat.
THE MUSEUM OF the Known Word (MoKW) houses the largest collection of art, technology, history, and science in all lands seen and unseen. Explore the story of human culture from its beginnings to the very present.¹
Established in 112 B.A. by renowned explorer and scientist Ser. William H.W. Packet and his wife, Edith Packet, as a “public collection of antiquities”² and originally known as the Packet Institution for Education and Discovery, upon her death in 90 B.A. Lady Packets trust was purchased by the Firmosan government whom in 00 A.A. established 09 Ser. William St. as the MoKW‘s permanent residence,³ and began to slowly expand the Packets initial collection through acquisition and discovery.⁴
Each and every artifact in the MoKW, tells it’s own unique story, across culture, time and history. Explore at your own pace and find the ideas and themes that connect all of these unique stories.
The MoKW sits in the heart of Newfield’s historic downtown. During the 1000 World’s Fair Expo, the Artifacts of The Known World exhibit debuted in this exact location. Following it’s success the MoKW was born.
Ser. William Packet sailed from BLANK to BLANK, and lived with the natives of BLANK, but by far his greatest legacy is that of the MoKW. Read more about Ser. Packet and his wife here.
The MoKW sits in the heart of Newfield’s historic downtown. During the 1000 World’s Fair Expo, the Artifacts of The Known World exhibit debuted in this exact location. Following it’s success the MoKW was born.
09 SER WILLIAMS ST, NEWFIELDS, FIRMOSA, MUSEUM OF THE KNOWN WORLD.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Et cupiditate quis eos blanditiis deleniti eum nobis placeat.
