Join the ROM team in the field in Peru

It’s been a hot summer, the sun is shining and the Scarborough Bluffs are standing tall above the Lake Ontario shoreline. But they might not be for long. The Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto’s east end are eroding at a rapid rate, increasing the likelihood of slope failure and damage to local species’ habitats. Although the cliffs have been eroding since the 1940s, the view from atop the Bluffs was too enticing to prevent people from further settling there. As houses were feverishly built along the Bluffs, the rate of erosion further accelerated.

One in five Canadians has at least one tattoo, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who sports a Haida symbol on his left shoulder. Tattoos have moved into the mainstream, companies have begun to relax rules on visible tattos in the workplace. The new exhibition charts the journey of tattooing from its deep historical and global roots, via its marginalizaiton, to its current revival in many cultures around the world. Here are six essential tattoo terms to know while walking through the Tattoos exhibition:

Glass is probably the most fluid of solids. Looking at blown glass, such as that in the ROM's Chihuly exhibition, is like watching movement made still. If you look carefully at the handles of the perfectly preserved handles of this Roman glass vase from Syria (above), it looks as though it is still a fluid, still dynamically moving along its flow. In a way, that is because it is. Glass essentially has the atomic structure of a fluid, but it has been so rapidly cooled that it is essentially stuck in that condition.