The Classical Antiquities Collection

The Classical Antiquities Collection consists of 3 600 objects, a quarter of which are Egyptian. The remainder are mostly Greek, Etruscan and Roman. Some of these objects were purchased by Ingvald Undset in Italy in the 1860s, but the core of the collection consists of gifts from King Oscar II, Baron Plato von Ustinow, and Arvid Andrén, supplemented by individual donations. The Ustinow collection is the largest, and consists of provincial Roman objects from Israel and Palestine, while the Andrén collection originates mainly from Etruria. The ancient artefacts are generally made of pottery, metal, glass and stone, and come from different periods. The Classical Antiquities Collection also includes a small collection of cuneiform writings from Mesopotamia. The museum’s ancient coins are part of the Coin Cabinet.

The Classical Antiquities Collection was organised as an individual collection, and overtook the objects formerly held by the Prehistoric Collection and the Ethnographic Museum in 1999, when the Museum of Cultural History was established. However, as early as 1862 the idea of a museum devoted specifically to antiquities was launched by historian P. A. Munch. Most of the public collections of antiquities in Europe and North America were established during the 1800s with the deliberate intention of collecting objects from ancient times, especially from Greece, Italy and Egypt. The Museum of Cultural History has acquired its objects through gifts, donations and individual purchases. Individual objects are still purchased from the relevant areas, and donations are still received from private collectors.

A large number of the Egyptian objects held by the Classical Antiquities Collection were received as a gift from Swedish-Norwegian King Oscar II. In 1893 he received mummy cases and other Pharaonic period items from the Egyptian State, and half of these were given to the Ethnographic Museum in Oslo. Included were two mummy cases, a mummy cover, and 42 Ushabtis from around 1000 BC.

Many of the Museum’s objects from Palestine and the Mediterranean area came from a wealthy exiled Russian and German, Baron Plato von Ustinow. He collected antiquities during his years as a missionary in Palestine. This unique and aristocratic collection includes Palestinian grave portraits and pottery, Jewish gravestone epitaphs, and oil lamps ranging from the Neolithic period to the 1800s.

The pioneer of Norwegian archaeology, Ingvald Undset (the father of Sigrid Undset, Nobel laureate in literature), collected objects in Italy in the 1860s. He purchased collections for the National Museum in Copenhagen, but had to find donors to purchase the collections he wanted to bring to Norway. He discovered 121 ancient bronze brooches (fibulae) in an Italian art shop, and persuaded Consul Peter Petersen to buy them and donate them to the Historical Museum. Today the Classical Antiquities Collection also includes some of the finest objects from Undset’s modest private collection.

In connection with the Museum’s acquisition of Arvid Andrén’s (1902-1999) collection of Etruscan objects, a small permanent exhibition, The Ancient World, was established in 2002. As a Swedish scientist who had written his doctoral dissertation on the architectural terracottas on Etruscan-Italian temples, Andrén could use his expertise to accumulate a small but carefully selected collection of Etruscan objects. Andrén was a professor at Lund University in Sweden, but decided to donate his collection to the Museum of Cultural History because of his strong ties with Norway. His wife, the former Karen Gulbrandsen, was Norwegian, and he was related to Hans Peter L’Orange, who founded the Norwegian Institute in Rome.

With the opening of The Ancient World in 2002 and Eternal Life in Ancient Egypt in 2006, parts of the Classical Antiquities Collection are now open to the public as permanent exhibitions.