National Museum (Ghana)
The National Museum of Ghana is a museum in Ghana located in Accra , the country's capital.
location
The National Museum of Ghana is located on Barnes Road in the center of Accra in close proximity to the Ghana National Museum of Science and Technology , the Ghanaian museum for science and technology. The museum is located in a two-story building and is not only frequented by tourists but also by school classes.
history
It is the oldest and largest of six museums under the administration of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board. Arnold Walter Lawrence , Professor of Archeology at the University College of the Gold Coast in Accra, was instrumental in its founding and opening. It was opened on March 6, 1957 as part of the celebrations of Ghana's independence from Great Britain with the participation of Marina, Duchess of Kent .
Exhibitions
Permanent exhibition
The permanent exhibition includes archaeological finds such as early exhibits, but also extensive material on pre-colonial history and culture as well as on the colonial era and newer exhibits.
The exhibition of the Ashanti gold weights is impressive, with many individual pieces showing the range of variations of the old weighing and payment practice in the Ashanti empire. It is precisely these ornate miniature gold sculptures that are very popular among collectors and are rarely seen on such a scale as in the National Museum in Ghana.
In addition to the gold weights, there are also traditional instruments and wooden chairs of the chiefs, i.e. the tribal chiefs. Traditional Kent fabrics and old pottery are also exhibited and their meaning is explained in English. Due to agreements with museums in other African countries, some exhibits from neighboring countries of Ghana and other African countries can be seen.
A few pictures by current artists can also be seen.
Essentially, the exhibits come from the property or former property of colonial administrators or were made available by traditional rulers and archaeologists.
Changing exhibitions
Until January 2006 the Peace Corps Ghana Visual Arts Exhibition was on view at the National Museum in Accra with the theme Arts, Lovinf Life . The exhibition dealt with the immunodeficiency disease AIDS.
The touring exhibition Brocken Memory (history and expropriation of cultural assets reflected in contemporary art) will be shown in the National Museum from November 2007 , after it opened in September 2007 at the Musée National du Mali in Bamako. From January 2008 the exhibition will be shown in the Musée d´Art Africain in Dakar , Senegal. The exhibition then comes to Europe.
Main entrance
See also
literature
- Arnold Walter Lawrence, Ralph Merrifield: The National Museum of Ghana. In: Museums Journal 57, 4, 1957, p. 88.
- Marc Crinson: Nation-building, collecting and the politics of display. The National Museum, Ghana . In: Journal of the History of Collections 13, 2001, pp. 231-250 ( digitized version ).
Individual evidence
Web links
- National Museum of Ghana, website
- Committee for Museums and Monuments in Ghana ( Memento from October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Official government website on tourism
Coordinates: 5 ° 33 ′ 24 " N , 0 ° 12 ′ 28" W.