Durham University Oriental Museum facts for kids

The Oriental Museum is a cool place to visit in Durham, England. It's part of Durham University. This museum holds over 23,500 amazing objects from places like China, Ancient Egypt, Korea, India, and Japan. These are all parts of Asia and the Far East.

It was started because Durham University had many interesting items from these regions. They needed a special home for them all! The museum's collections from China and Egypt are super important. They are recognized as being important for the whole country and even the world.

Discovering the Oriental Museum

The Oriental Museum first opened its doors in 1960. It was created to help students and teachers at Durham University learn about different cultures. Over the years, the museum's collections have grown a lot. Many people have donated or sold their special items to the museum.

How the Museum Started

The first items for the museum came from a man named Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland. He had many ancient objects from places like Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt. These items arrived in Durham in the late 1950s. They were first kept in two rooms at Hatfield College.

Later, a professor named Raymond Dawson helped the museum get items from the Far East. He organized art shows with Chinese objects. Then, a man named Harold MacDonald, who was a diplomat, loaned his huge collection of Chinese items to the museum. He had collected them while working in Singapore.

A New Home and Name

As the collections grew, the university needed a bigger space. The museum moved to its current spot on the edge of Durham. In 1957, the Gulbenkian Foundation gave a large donation of £60,000. Because of this generous gift, the museum was renamed the Gulbenkian Museum of Oriental Art and Archaeology.

The new museum building was finished in 1959. By the end of that year, many more Chinese objects were added. These came from Sir Charles Hardinge. The museum officially opened in May 1960. At first, it was open three days a week and welcomed about 100 visitors each week.

A Piece of the Moon

In 1969, something truly out of this world came to the museum! A tiny piece of Moon rock was sent to the university. Before scientists studied it, the rock was shown at the museum for two days. Over 12,000 people came to see it! The museum even stayed open late to let everyone have a look.

Important Collections and Awards

In 2008, the museum's Egyptian and Chinese art collections were given a special status. This meant they were recognized as being very important. That same year, 150 items from the museum traveled to Japan for an exhibition. Over 185,000 people saw these amazing objects there.

In March 2012, the museum won a national award called "The Bronze Hear by Right." This award recognized the museum's great work with young people.

Amazing Collections to Explore

The Oriental Museum has many different collections. Each one tells a unique story about a part of the world.

• China: This collection has over 10,000 objects! You can see items from ancient times, like the Zhou dynasty, all the way to the Qing dynasty. There are about 1,000 pieces of Chinese pottery. Also, nearly 2,000 beautiful pieces of Jade and other hard stones are on display.
• Korea: This is one of the smaller collections, with just over 500 pieces. It includes items from the Goryeo dynasty and Joseon dynasty. You can see bronze mirrors and special ceramics with unique patterns. The collection also has modern Korean art, showing how Korean culture has changed over time.
• Indian Subcontinent: Here you'll find about 1,500 objects. These range from stone sculptures to beautiful jade items from the Mughal Empire. There are also over 5,000 old photographs taken by an archaeologist named John Marshall.
• Japan: The Japanese collection mostly covers the Edo and Meiji periods. But it also has older items from the Muromachi and Momoyama periods. Look out for a bronze Buddha head from the Kamakura era!
• South East Asia: This collection mainly comes from two sources. One is the Harold MacDonald collection, with items given to him as a diplomat. The other is the Roberts Collection, which has beautiful art from Bali.
• The Levant and Middle East: This part of the museum has many objects found during archaeological digs. Some items are from famous excavations by Sir Leonard Woolley at Ur and Kathleen Kenyon at Jericho. You can see ancient seals and clay tablets with cuneiform writing.
• Ancient Egypt: This is a huge collection with over 6,700 objects! Many items came from the Fourth Duke of Northumberland and Sir Henry Wellcome. You can see an ancient funeral mask, small statues called Shabti, and a statue of a powerful official named Paser.