World Museum Liverpool
The World Museum Liverpool is a large museum in Liverpool , England that houses extensive archaeological , ethnological , natural history and physical collections. Special attractions are the Natural History Center and the planetarium. Entry to both the museum and the planetarium is free.
Recently, extensive renovation measures have doubled the size of the exhibition rooms and more exhibitions have been made accessible to viewers. Larger new galleries host the World Cultures, Bug House, and Weston Discovery Center.
The museum is part of the National Museums Liverpool .
history
In 1851 the Derby Museum was opened on Duke Street , where the private natural history collection of Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of Derby , was housed in two rooms . Over time, the museum became extremely popular, requiring the construction of a new purpose-built building to replace it.
Land for the new building on Shaw's Brow across from St. George's Hall was provided by William Brown , a local MP and merchant. Since Brown also paid most of the construction costs, the building in which the museum is located has been called the William Brown Library and Museum . Shaw's Brow was renamed William Brown Street. Around 400,000 people attended the opening of the new building in 1860.
Since in the late 19th century the capacity of the museum building was no longer sufficient for the exhibits, a competition for an extension was announced. That competition was won by William Mountford, and the College of Technology and Museum Extension opened in 1901.
Liverpool, one of the UK's most important ports, was badly damaged by the German air raids in May 1941. A large part of the museum collections could be saved by keeping them in less endangered locations, but the museum building itself was badly damaged by the German incendiary bombs. Parts of the museum reopened fifteen years later.
In the early 2000s, the museum was expanded again. After the construction of a central entrance hall and a six-story atrium, it was reopened in April 2005 and the museum formerly known as the Liverpool Museum was renamed the World Museum Liverpool.
Departments
Egyptology
The Egyptological collection contains around 15,000 objects from Egypt and Sudan and is the most important individual component of the antiquities department. The chronological spectrum of the collections ranges from prehistory to the Islamic period. The largest collections come from Abydos , Amarna , Beni Hasan , Esna and Meroe .
The museum received over 5,000 Egyptian exhibits in 1867 from Joseph Mayer (1803–1886), a goldsmith and antique dealer who acquired the collections of Joseph Sams from Darlington , Lord Valentia, Bram Hertz and Reverend Henry Stobart. Mayer exhibited his collections in his own Egyptian museum in Liverpool to give citizens who were unable to visit the British Museum in London an idea of the achievements of Egyptian civilization.
Due to this extensive donation, other people also bequeathed their Egyptian material to the museum. At the end of the 19th century, the Liverpool Museum owned an extensive collection of Egyptian antiquities, which the journalist and Egyptologist Amelia Edwards called the second most important Egyptological collection after that of the British Museum .
The museum was bombed during the Liverpool Blitz in May 1941, destroying many Egyptian artifacts. Only in 1976 was a permanent Egyptology department reopened. In 1947 and 1949 the museum received new excavation material that was collected by John Garstang in Meroe. Thanks to support from Liverpool University, material from excavations in Beni Hasan and Abydos was added in 1955. In 1956, almost all of the non-British material in the Norwich Castle Museum was bought up. In 1973 the collection was enlarged with the acquisition of part of Sir Henry Wellcome's collection . In 1976 Colonel JR Danson bequeathed artifacts to the museum from Garstang's excavations in Amarna and Abydos. A new Egyptian gallery opened in August 2008 and was built for £ 600,000.
ethnology
The World Museum Liverpool's ethnological collection is one of the six largest in England. They house an African, an American, an Oceanic and an Asian section with interactive displays.
Natural history
This section presents living insect colonies as well as historical zoological and botanical collections. The 13th Earl of Derby already collected specimens at his country estate in Knowsley Hall, which were on display in the Derby Museum from 1851. The exhibits include one of the 75 giant aalk eggs that have been preserved worldwide, as well as preparations from rare or now extinct species, including the Liverpool pigeon , the dodo , the thylacine , the Falkland fox , the long-tailed jumping mouse , the thin -beaked nest , the Lord Howe Purple Chicken and the South Island Piopio .
The natural history collections have been continuously enlarged since then and consist of around 20,000 exhibits. They contain significant herbaria that are over 200 years old and represent most of the flora native to Britain and Ireland. These collections are kept in the award-winning Clore Natural History Center.
geology
The geological department of the World Museum Liverpool exhibits over 40,000 fossils and extensive collections of rocks and minerals. Each of these exhibits shows information about the formation, structure and history of planet earth.
This department was founded in 1858. However, a large part of the original collection was destroyed during the Second World War. The department was rebuilt after the war through acquisitions of collections from several important museums and university collections. The University of Liverpool donated around 6,000 fossil exhibits .
space and time
The physics department of the World Museum Liverpool was rebuilt after the devastating fire in 1941. The division was enlarged by transferring the collections from the Decorative Arts Department, the Regional History Department, the Walker Art Gallery and the Prescot Museum. The most important collections were acquired from the Liverpool Royal Institution, the Bidston Observatory, the Proudman Institute of Oceanographic Sciences and the Physics Department of the University of Liverpool. Some of the exhibits shown in this department are unique elements that were created during the DELPHI experiment in the Large Electron-Positron Collider in the large research facility CERN . Another attraction is the equatorium , a post-Copernican instrument for the mechanical-geometric determination of planetary positions, which was made in the early 17th century.
planetarium
The planetarium was opened in 1970 and has 62 seats. It attracts around 45,000 visitors annually and shows the various aspects of space exploration , including the solar system . Special children's shows are also offered.
Coordinates: 53 ° 24 ′ 36 " N , 2 ° 58 ′ 53" W.
