Pitt Rivers Museum facts for kids
Pitt Rivers Museum interior, 2015
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| Established | 1884 |
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| Location | Parks Road, Oxford, England |
| Type | University museum of archaeology and anthropology |
| Visitors | 468,013 (2019) |
The Pitt Rivers Museum is a special museum in Oxford, England. It holds amazing collections of old objects and things about human cultures from all over the world. You can find it right next to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. You enter the Pitt Rivers Museum through that building.
The museum started in 1884. It was founded by Augustus Pitt Rivers. He gave his own huge collection to the University of Oxford. He had two main conditions for his gift. First, the university had to hire a permanent teacher for anthropology. This is the study of human societies and cultures. Even today, museum staff help teach these subjects at the university. The first person to manage the museum was Henry Balfour.
Second, a special building had to be built just for the collection. It could not be used for anything else. So, the university hired Thomas Manly Deane to design it. His father had helped design the Natural History Museum earlier. Construction began in 1885 and finished in 1886.
When it first opened, the museum had about 22,000 items. Now, it has grown to 500,000 items! Many of these have been given by travelers, scholars, and missionaries.
On March 17, 2020, the museum closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened on September 22, 2020. During this closure, the museum decided to remove the shrunken heads that had been on display. These heads had been shown since the 1940s.
Contents
How the Museum is Organized
The museum's collection is arranged in a very unique way. Objects are grouped by how they were used, not by their age or where they came from. This idea came from Pitt Rivers himself. He wanted to show how human tools and cultures developed from simple to more complex.
Even though this way of thinking about culture has changed, the museum still keeps its original display style. You will see many examples of the same type of tool or object. This shows how they changed over time and in different places. The museum has many objects on display, and they sometimes change what is shown.
The largest object in the museum is a totem pole from the Haida people. It is 11.36 meters (about 37 feet) tall! This pole originally stood outside Star House in the village of Old Massett in British Columbia, Canada. The house was built around 1882 and belonged to a chief named Anetlas. The pole came to the Pitt Rivers Museum in 1901.
Museum Improvements
In 2004, the museum received a lot of money to build a new research area. This new building was finished in 2007. It allowed the museum's experts to work on site again. It also provided a special laboratory to help take care of the old objects. These new parts do not change the museum's original Victorian displays.
More improvements began on July 7, 2008. This meant the museum had to close for a while. It reopened on May 1, 2009. During this time, an exhibition gallery from the 1960s was taken down. This brought back the original view of the museum's totem pole. Old display cases were also put back in their first spots.
The space upstairs now has a new education center for visitors. A new entrance platform makes it easier for everyone to enter. This includes people using wheelchairs or parents with strollers. The entrance area also has new shop and reception areas. A system to control the temperature and humidity was also added to protect the collections.
Awards and Recognition
The Pitt Rivers Museum and the Oxford University Museum of Natural History won an award in 2005. The Guardian newspaper named them the Family Friendly Museum of the Year.
In 2019, the Pitt Rivers Museum was also a finalist for the Art Fund Museum of the Year Award.
Dealing with the Past
Recently, the Pitt Rivers Museum has been praised for its work on decoloniality. This means they are working to understand and address how their collections might be connected to colonialism. You can find more details on their website.
In September 2020, the museum announced some important changes to its displays. They removed human remains from display. They also added a new introductory case that talks about the museum's colonial past. The museum also plans to change labels on objects. These new labels will share stories from artists and leaders from the original communities.
As part of this work, the Pitt Rivers Museum is meeting with communities where objects came from. They want to correct any mistakes or missing information. They also discuss returning items to their original homes. One project is called "Living Cultures." This is a partnership between the museum, a Maasai community group called Oltoilo Le Maa, and an organization called InsightShare.
Images for kids
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The Pitt Rivers Museum
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Shrunken heads at the Pitt Rivers Museum. These have since been removed from display.
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Skull from Yungya Village, Nagaland
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Figures from around the world
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Fishing boat models from around the world
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Japanese Noh masks
See also
In Spanish: Museo Pitt Rivers para niños
