Digging into the Bowie archives

Darryl Webber visits an incredible collection of the Starman's artefacts at V&A East in Stratford

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A colour slide by Mick Rock of David Bowie applying make-up as Ziggy Stardust is among the images at the archive Lithograph of 1988 painting Self Portrait (Mustique) by David Bowie, 2002, from the archive

(MICK ROCK/DAVID BOWIE CENTRE DAVID BOWIE CENTRE)

WALKING into the sprawling storehouse at V&A East reminds me of that closing scene in Raiders Of The Lost Ark where the treasure is crated up and stowed away among many rows of other items in a huge military storage facility.

You get a similar feeling as you make your way past the rows of artefacts here in Stratford, east London. Perhaps the Ark is tucked away in one of these endless corridors?

As you go up the stairs from the main entrance you pass into a treasure trove of cultural history, an Aladdin's Cave (or should that be an Aladdin Sane’s Cave?) of what anthropologists call material culture - the stuff we humans leave behind.

You walk past busts of the great and good of centuries gone by, images of Jesus, ornate chests, intricately decorated furniture, period costumes and what looks like an early version of an electric bike.