The Museum of Civilizations was created in Rome in September 2016 through a fusion of five important institutions: the Museo Preistorico Etnografico “Luigi Pigorini”, the Museo delle Arti e Tradizioni Popolari “Lamberto Loria”, the Museo d’Arte Orientale “Giuseppe Tucci”, the Museo dell’Alto Medioevo “Alessandra Vaccaro” and the Museo Italo-Africano.

The birth of this major cultural centre has made it possible to take a unified and innovative approach to the management and promotion of archaeological and ethnographic collections unparalleled in Italy so as to interest an increasingly large public in sectors of the national heritage once regarded as the exclusive preserve of scholars and specialists.

A visit to the Museum of Civilizations is an amazing journey around the world! One of the most irrational museums you could ever imagine is in Rome’s EUR district, a zone of ra-tional architecture par excellence. The magical objects here don’t just talk, they positively yell! In my comic strip, I’ve attempted to evoke some of the thousands of lives these oddball artefacts have lived. The place is a veritable constellation of human inventiveness, the most absurd forms alongside the friendliest-looking monsters you’ve ever seen. Just give these items a little time and you’ll hear the sounds of the jungle or the wind in the deserts they're from. One fun thing to do is track down all eighteen characters and objects I’ve put into the story. Happy hunting

Peru, Moche culture, 300 BCE – 700 CE The bottle takes the shape of two entwined monkeys wearing ponchos. The pouches for coca leaves hung around their necks and large circular earrings are indicative of high social rank. The artistic expressions of the Moche or Mochica civilization, especially in ceramics and metal, display levels of skill and creativity unequalled in the history of ancient Peru.

Australia, Njangamarda, 19th century This mask of a human face was made out of a kerosene can and worn during public ceremonies to represent the "dream time", the mythic dimension in which the world was born. Such masks of recycled material reflect the creative and adaptive power of the Aborigine cultures, their capacity to transform traditional forms through the addition and incorporation of new materials introduced into the region.

Sierra Leone, late 15th – early 16th century Afro-Portuguese salt cellars are the African version in ivory of the precious items that adorned the tables of European princes during the Renaissance. The earliest African ivories reached Europe in the late 15th and early 16th century. They were produced by artists of Sherbro Island, inhabited by the Sapi peoples, in present-day Sierra Leone. The design of human heads is the hallmark of the Sapi-Portuguese style.

Trobriand Islands, Kitava, 20th century Made in the mid-1970s on the island of Kitava, this canoe was used during the "Kula ring" ceremony involving various islands of the Massim archipelago. This ceremonial exchange of valuables connects the different island communities in a relationship of reciprocity of central Importance in social life. Participation in the Kula ring and possession of the items involved is a source of great prestige.