Teaching world cultures in the middle-level geography classroom presents challenges both because of the complexity of culture and because of the characteristics of students of this age. One effective way to teach about a culture is through the use of cultural artifacts. This article discusses how to collect and use cultural artifacts in the classroom. Students apply the skills of geographic inquiry to cultural artifacts to make observations and inferences about culture, then test their hypotheses with further research. The article examines the relationship between artifacts and culture and the validity of student inferences and understandings constructed through such artifact-based inquiry. (Contains 6 figures.)