Amathole Museum
The Amathole Museum (formerly: Kaffrarian Museum ) in King William's Town ( Eastern Cape Province ) was founded in 1884 and has one of the most extensive collections of regional issues from the Eastern Cape. His historical exhibition focus is on the Xhosa culture and European immigration history. It also houses an extraordinarily rich natural history collection, which forms the historical core of the museum.
history
The museum was founded in 1884 at the instigation of the King William's Town Naturalist Society . Two years after the founding decision, the society showed a collection of geological objects for the first time. However, this did not mean that a permanent museum exhibition had been established. It was not until 1898 that the Natural History Museum in the east wing of today's museum complex was made permanently accessible to the public. The most important expansion took place in 1953 when the public library was added. The former Wesleyaner church and the historic post office were added in the early 1980s to provide new exhibition areas for the growing museum collection. The former post office (built in 1877) now houses a collection on the art and folklore of the Xhosa people. It primarily documents the developments in the area of the former Bantu state Ciskei .
In 1999 the name changed from the Kaffrarian Museum to the Amathole Museum . The modern name is derived from the Amathole Mountains and the region of the same name and the administrative district . More recently, efforts have been made to cooperate with the Steve Biko Foundation.
Important exhibition groups
The efforts of the second museum director, Guy Shortridge, resulted in a collection of mammals that is now the second largest of its kind in South Africa . It contains specimens of most of the larger and medium-sized mammal species from southern Africa. A special exhibit in the mammal collection is the hippopotamus “Huberta”, which was shot by hunters on April 23, 1931 after a 1,000-kilometer hike from KwaZulu-Natal on the Keiskamma River (Amathole foreland). This animal killing is still considered controversial today. A publication by Guy Shortridge on the mammals of Namibia from 1934 is still the most important scientific account of this today.
The geological-mineralogical part of the collection describes the geoscientific conditions in the Amathole region. The sandstones of the Karoo group and the various dolerite intrusions (for example from the Hogsback region ) are discussed in particular . A small mineral collection shows the regional ore deposits.
Even before the Albany Museum in Makhanda, this part of the collection is the largest publicly exhibited mineralogical-petrographic-paleontological collection in the Eastern Cape Province.
A Xhosa beaded collection created on the initiative of Professor Philip and Dr. Iona Mayer was collected in the Peddie area from the late 1950s and early 1960s, and with the support of the University of Fort Hare , in neighboring Alice , the museum was able to acquire it from Oxford as an important reference for Xhosa art in the late 1970s in this way back to South Africa.
The prehistoric exhibition components from the early Stone Age attest to the ancient history of settlement in the Eastern Cape. Archaeological evidence from the Iron Age period from a site near East London can also be found here .
In the attached Missionary Museum (opened in 1976), visitors can see the printing press with which the first Bible in the Xhosa language was published by Reverend John Appleyard in the mid-19th century . It was completed in 1859 by further translations in the Mount Coke Mission.
The building of the former Wesleyaner Church dates from 1855. This Methodist mission group sold it in 1894 to the Baptists , who operated the church until the Group Areas Act was legally closed.
Most important exhibition parts
Main building complex
- regional historical collection about the city and its life
- zoological collection with a significant part of the mammals
- geological, mineralogical and paleontological collection
- Exhibition on Anglo-Saxon immigration in the Eastern Cape
- Exhibition on German immigration (1857–1859) in the Eastern Cape
- Border wars from 1779 to 1879
- Library holdings
Former post office
- Art of the Xhosa
- Folklore of the Xhosa people
- History of the origin of today's national anthem from the song " Nkosi Sikelel 'iAfrika " and its creator, the missionary teacher Enoch Mankayi Sontonga (1872–1905)
Missionary Museum in the former Wesleyaner Church
- Collection of testimonies of Christian missionary work in the Eastern Cape
Museum publications
The museum publishes a monthly newsletter called Imvubu and an annual report . Other publications include the Xhosa History Series and a walking tours of King William's Town guide . The History of the Kaffrarian Museum monograph is out of print. The term " Kaffirs " as a group name for the Xhosa population is now considered unacceptable, as it has embodied a humiliating statement at least since the apartheid era and is therefore socially sanctioned.
literature
- Mike Raath, Dorothy Pitman, Jenny Bennie: Museums of the Eastern Cape . Port Elizabeth (SAMA Eastern Cape) 1996, ISBN 0-620-19916-4
Web links
- Official website (English)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 32 ° 52 ′ 37.9 ″ S , 27 ° 23 ′ 29.7 ″ E