Etnographic collection

Since the University’s ethnographic museum was established in 1857, explorers, diplomats, seamen, missionaries, anthropologists and others have added objects from all corners of the world to the collection. Among the contributors are renowned figures such as Roald Amundsen and Carl Lumholtz.

The collection has grown through gifts, purchases and exchanges, and now comprises objects ranging from the merely odd, through the everyday, to the extremely valuable. In addition to telling their stories about far-off peoples and other continents, these objects say a great deal about the people who collected them and about those who received them and included them in the collection.

The picture above shows a costume worn by a king in Liberia.