Pitt Rivers Museum interior

The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum displaying the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. The museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building.

The museum was founded in 1884 by General Augustus Pitt Rivers, who donated his collection to the University of Oxford with the condition that a permanent lecturer in anthropology must be appointed. Museum staff are involved in anthropology teaching at the University even today.

The original donation consisted of approximatley 14,000 items, which have now grown to 500,000 items, many of which have been donated by travellers, scholars, missionaries and British people.

The museum's collection is arranged thematically, according to how the objects were used, rather than according to their age or origin. This layout owes a lot to the theories of General Pitt Rivers himself, who intended for his collection to show progression in design and evolution in human culture from simple to complex. Since this concept is no longer accepted in anthropology, the displays are today intended to celebrate cultural diversity.

The museum has an incredibly high density of objects on display, and the displays are regularly changed.

In 2004, the museum received £3,700,000 from the Higher Education Funding Council for England to build a research annexe adjoining the museum. Building work will be completed in 2006, bringing the academic staff of the museum back to the site, and providing a laboratory for conservation of the specimens. The annexe will not affect the Victorian displays of the museum.

References

• Baumgarten, Lothar. Unsettled Objects. Edition of Guggenheim Magazine published in conjunction with the exhibition AMERICA Invention. New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1993.

(contains photographic documention of the Pitt Rivers' collection and essays on ethnographic collecting)

• Chapman, William Ryan. “Arranging Ethnology: A. H. L. F. Pitt Rivers and the Typological Tradition.” In Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture. Edited by George W. Stocking, Jr. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

• Cranstone, B.A.L. and Steven Seidenberg. The General’s Gift: A Celebration of the Pitt Rivers Museum Centenary, 1884-1984. Oxford: JASO, 1984.

External link

• Pitt Rivers Museum website