Talana Museum

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Talana Museum, former Burnside Mine power station

The Talana Museum (German: Talana Museum ) is located on the outskirts of the South African city ​​of Dundee in the province of KwaZulu-Natal and in a historic mining landscape . It was founded in 1979 as a collection of testimonies about the war between English colonial troops and Zulu fighters . The already existing small collection was moved in 1983 to a group of houses at the foot of the Talana Hill within a park area of 20 acres . In this park, 23 buildings are now used for museum purposes, in which topics with regional relevance, such as mining , housekeeping , industry , war , agriculture and civil society are presented.

The Zulu word "Talana" means something like "the shelf on which valuable objects are kept".

With the exhibition area coal mining, the museum refers to the coal mining ( hard coal ) organized in South Africa by European immigrants , which began with the Dundee Coal Company . This coal mining began on the slopes of the Talana Mountain. In 1889 the company went public on the London Stock Exchange .

The museum shows extensive documentation and a collection of historical evidence about the local coal mining industry in four areas. Since the last quarter of the 19th century, Dundee has grown into a prosperous center of coal mining in South Africa, which is reflected in other exhibition areas about the historical worlds of its inhabitants. The exhibits made available by the Chamber of Mines provide information on topics such as the early history of mining , mine separation , the world of work in the mines, the containment of coal dust during mining, the geology of the region and rescue services in the event of mine accidents . Reproductions of historical pictures of the coal mines of Hloban and Durnacol, a collection financed by ISCOR Mining , show the previous conditions in both mines and additional texts describe their history.

In the exhibition area 1913 Passive Resistance Movement (German roughly: "1913, Movement of Nonviolent Resistance "), a hearing on November 11, 1913 against Mohandas Gandhi in the local court is remembered. In relation to this event, the exhibition provides information about the Indian contract workers and their living conditions in the coal mines and farms of Natal . A monument to Gandhi with a bronze bust, a gift from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations ( New Delhi ), was also erected here.

Through a special project by the artist Vaughn Sadie and the theater maker Neil Coppen with the methodical approach of oral history , an area is dedicated to the history of the township of Sibongile, a district of Dundee.

The battlefields of the locations Blood River , Rorkes Drift, Fugitives Drift, Isandlwana , ElandslaAGEN , Spioenkop , Colenso and the siege of Ladysmith, which are significant for South African history, are presented in a separate exhibition area.

View of the Kwa Kunje Cultural Village

In the Kwa Kunje Cultural Village , part of the open-air museum grounds, the everyday life can be experienced in traditional rural development. The buildings are rented to school groups and backpackers.

The extensive museum park is devoted to numerous other interesting topics. These include the Victorian Music Hall , an Indian trading store, a hall for clothing and fashion, African ceramic vessels from over 100 years ago, individual handicrafts and agriculture, as well as the region's railroad history, which also includes a steam locomotive and passenger car in one scaled down Includes replica of the previous Talana station .

Web links

Commons : Talana museum  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Talana Museum: Our Museum . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  2. ^ Talana Museum: Mining Exhibits . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  3. ^ Talana Museum: 1913 Passive Resistance Movement . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  4. ^ Talana Museum: Mahatma Ghandi Memorial . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  5. ^ Talana Museum: The Sibongile Project . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  6. ^ Talana Museum: Military Exhibits . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  7. ^ Talana Museum: Kwa Kunje Cultural Village . on www.talana.co.za (English)
  8. ^ Talana Museum: Other Exhibits . on www.talana.co.za (English)

Coordinates: 28 ° 9 '20.74 "  S , 30 ° 15' 37.84"  O