Reconstructing the past: when intangible heritage meets scientific practice

This article argues that during the past decades we have seen a successful embedding of artifacts and practices in the history of science and technology. More recently, concepts of tacit knowledge, gestural knowledge and embodied knowledge have emerged. We have observed in academia and museums a shift from what became called ‘material culture’ to a more concise approach of a ‘maker culture’. This in turn led to history of science and technology museums taking a renewed interest in linking material and immaterial heritage. Historic reconstructions are a powerful method of accessing, examining and combining these various approaches, and the reconstruction method will be discussed here as a historiographic tool, with the intention of bringing historic innovations and community practices together.