Museums - Museum für Volkerkunde

The Museum of Ethnology Vienna had its beginnings in 1806, when the acquisition of a large part of the collection of James Cook led to the establishment of a separate "Ethnographic Collection" within the Imperial Cabinet of Natural History. After 1876, the rapidly growing collections were preserved in the Anthropological-Ethnographic Department of the Museum of Natural History. In 1928, a separate Museum of Ethnology was created in the Corps de Logis wing of the Imperial Castle. The museum has been part of the Scientific Institution of Public Law "Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna with Museum of Ethnology and Austrian Theater Museum" since 2001. Today, the Museum of Ethnology Vienna is one of the most important ethnological museums of the world. It preserves more than 200,000 ethnographic artifacts, 25,000 historical photographs, and 136,000 books and journals primarily relating to the culture and history on non-European peoples. Since 2006, the museum also holds the Human-Ethnological Film Archive Eibl-Eibesfeldt with more than 300 kilometers of film about the daily life of five traditional societies in Africa (!Kung, Himba), South America (Yanomami), and Oceania (Trobriand, Eipo/In-Yalenang). Among the museum's special treasures are the collections from Oceania and North America assembled by James Cook on his circumnavigations 1768–1780 and a group of Mexican featherwork and other rare and precious objects from the Americas, Africa, and Indonesia, which in 1596 were part of the collection of Archduke Ferdinand of Tyrol at Ambras Castle. The museum is also famous for its extensive Brazilian collection brought together in 1817–1836 by Johann Natterer, and for its outstanding collection of bronzes from the West African kingdom of Benin. The 14,000 objects acquired by Archduke Franz Ferdinand on his tour around the world in 1892–1893 form the museum's single largest collection.