37073 Göttingen
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The Ethnographic Collection of the University of Göttingen is one of the most important teaching and research collections in the German-speaking world. Its beginnings date back to the time of the Enlightenment.
The history of the Ethnographic Collection began 1773 with the establishment of the Academic Museum at Göttingen University. Thanks to the initiative of the professor of medicine Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, cultural artefacts from the South Seas ("Cook/Forster Collection") and the Arctic polar region ("Baron von Asch Collection") were brought to Göttingen in the second half of the 18th century. After Blumenbach's death in 1840, the collection was initially cared for by scholars from other disciplines. In 1928, anthropological teaching began in Göttingen with the available objects.
At present, the collection comprises of about 18,000 objects from all continents. Furthermore, graphics and paintings, archival materials, photographs as well as hands-on objects of museum education are part of its inventory. As part of digitization measures, the collection has been increasingly viewable in the online collection portal of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen. Holdings from colonial contexts are also included in the database of the Lower Saxony provenance research project PAESE. The analog inventory catalogs are available for download as .pdf files.
The objects preserved here are explored in research projects under a variety of questions. They are used in seminars for the education of students. In addition, the collection is open to the public in the form of permanent and special exhibitions (currently: closed due to building refurbishment).