Museums - Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge
Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge
Downing St.
CB2 3DZ Cambridge
United Kingdom
+44 (0)1223 333 510
 | Tuesday – Saturday, 10h30 – 16h30
|
The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology was first established at Cambridge University in 1884 under the title of the Museum of General and Local Archaeology. Its initial collections included those of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, which began amassing material in 1839, and the museum's first curator, Baron Anatole von Hügel, in association with colleagues such as Sir Arthur Gordon and Alfred Maudslay, provided the early groundwork for what would become a world-class collection of Oceanic art. Two expeditions to the Torres Strait in 1888 and 1898 contributed a multitude of artifacts and an important collection of photographs to the museum, and the gradually expanding collection was moved into its current dedicated building at Downing Street during the 1910s and 1920s. The museum's World Archaeology gallery was refurbished in 1984, and in 1990 the top two floors of the museum were renovated to house displays of world anthropology and major temporary exhibitions.
Between 1912 and 1927, a number of rare and important collections entered the museum's holdings, notably a group of more than 200 objects from the three eighteenth-century voyages of Captain James Cook, a collection of over fifty objects from Spelman Swaine, a midshipman on Captain George Vancouver's voyage to the Pacific Coast of North America, and a variety of items that were originally held by the Leverian Museum (1772–1786). Gradually enlarged during the rest of the twentieth century through donations, acquisitions, and diligent work on the part of museum staff, the permanent collections currently total more than 800,000 important objects, as well as over 100,000 field photographs and negatives and more than 30,000 historical documentary archives. The museum's Oceanic holdings are exceptionally strong, containing over 30,000 artifacts from Fiji, Vanuatu, New Guinea, the Austral Islands, the Torres Strait, Australia, and elsewhere. Other anthropological collections cover Borneo, Malaysia, West Africa, Mexico, the Amazon, the North American Plains and Northwest Coast, and the Canadian Arctic.
Between 1912 and 1927, a number of rare and important collections entered the museum's holdings, notably a group of more than 200 objects from the three eighteenth-century voyages of Captain James Cook, a collection of over fifty objects from Spelman Swaine, a midshipman on Captain George Vancouver's voyage to the Pacific Coast of North America, and a variety of items that were originally held by the Leverian Museum (1772–1786). Gradually enlarged during the rest of the twentieth century through donations, acquisitions, and diligent work on the part of museum staff, the permanent collections currently total more than 800,000 important objects, as well as over 100,000 field photographs and negatives and more than 30,000 historical documentary archives. The museum's Oceanic holdings are exceptionally strong, containing over 30,000 artifacts from Fiji, Vanuatu, New Guinea, the Austral Islands, the Torres Strait, Australia, and elsewhere. Other anthropological collections cover Borneo, Malaysia, West Africa, Mexico, the Amazon, the North American Plains and Northwest Coast, and the Canadian Arctic.