Ethnological Museum of Berlin

The Ethnologisches Museum Berlin () is one of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin (), the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its exhibitions are presently located in the Humboldt Forum in Mitte, along with the Museum für Asiatische Kunst (). The collections remained in the so-called “Forschungscampus Dahlem” (). The museum holds more than 500,000 objects and is one of the largest and most important collections of works of art and culture from outside Europe in the world.Viola König (Hrsg.): ''Ethnologisches Museum Berlin''. Prestel, München 2003. Seite 8. Its highlights include important objects from the Sepik River, Hawaii, the Kingdom of Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, China, the Pacific Coast of North America, Mesoamerica, the Andes, as well as one of the first ethnomusicology collections of sound recordings (the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv).

The Ethnologisches Museum was founded in 1873 and opened its doors in 1886 as the Royal Museum for Ethnology (), but its roots go back to the 17th-century Kunstkammer of the rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia.Viola König (Hrsg.): ''Ethnologisches Museum Berlin''. Prestel, München, 2003, S. 14. As the museum’s collections expanded in the early 20th century, the museum quickly outgrew its facility in the center of Berlin on Königgrätzer Straße (today named Stresemannstraße).Viola König (Hrsg.): ''Ethnologisches Museum Berlin''. Prestel, München 2003, S. 16. A new building was erected in Dahlem to house the museum’s store rooms and study collections. In the Second World War, the main building of the museum was heavily damaged. It was demolished in 1961, and the buildings in Dahlem (in what was then West Berlin) were reconfigured to serve as the museum's exhibition spaces.

Following German reunification, although many of the Berlin museum collections were relocated, the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum remained in Dahlem. Starting in 2000, concrete plans were developed to relocate the collections back to the center of the city. In 2021, the Ethnologisches Museum and Museum für Asiatische Kunst were reopened in the Humboldt Forum in the reconstructed Berlin City Palace () immediately south of the main Museum Island complex.

Collections

Beginning in January 2016, the Ethnologisches Museum began the process of dismantling its exhibitions in preparation for its move to the Humboldt Forum. The exhibitions in Dahlem were closed in January 2017. Until then, the permanent exhibitions displayed works from Africa, Mesoamerican archaeology, and South Asia. Highlights included the collections of painted Maya vases and drinking cups, Benin bronzes, sculpture from Cameroon, and power figures from Congo.

The collections themselves encompass more than 500,000 from around the world. In addition, the museum holds more than 280,000 historical photographs, a substantial archive, more than 125,000 sound recordings, and 20,000 ethnographic films. The collection is organized according to geography as well as methodological approaches. The main divisions are Africa, Oceania, East-and North-Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, American ethnology, American archaeology, and ethnomusicology. The museum also houses a specialized reference library of more than 140,000 volumes relating to ethnology, non-European art, and global art.

The new exhibitions of the Ethnological Museum in the Humboldt Forum were opened successively in 2021 and 2022 with a delay due to the Covid 19 pandemic.

At the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin Dahlem, many objects in the collection made of organic materials such as wood, raffia, or feathers were treated with chemicals for conservation purposes. As a result, many of these objects are now contaminated and pose a serious health risk when handled by humans.

Repatriation of stolen artifacts

In 2021, the museum announced plans to return some of its holding of Nigerian artifacts, including a large collection of Benin Bronzes, to Nigeria. The Bronzes had been looted during the British Benin Expedition of 1897.

In 2022, a group of 23 artifacts from the collection, including precious jewelry and pottery, was returned indefinitely to Namibia. The items were taken between 1884 and 1915, when Namibia was part of the German Empire colony German South West Africa.

Selected works

File:Ethnologisches Museum Berlin Afrika 025.JPG, Gold pendant from West Africa
File:Afrikaabteilung in Ethnological Museum Berlin 61.JPG, Fang Ngil mask from Cameroon/Gabon
File:Statue Bangwa-Musée ethnologique de Berlin.jpg, Statue of a Bangwa king with twins
File:Königsthron Bamum EthnM IIIC33341.jpg, Throne of King Nsangu of Bamum ('Mandu Yenu')
File:Statue Luluwa-Musée ethnologique de Berlin.jpg, Lulua figure (the Leopard chief)
File:Ethnologisches Museum Berlin Afrika 001.JPG, Seat with ancestral figures
File:Statuette Chokwe-Musée ethnologique de Berlin.jpg, Chokwe figure of a queen or queen mother
File:Südseeabteilung in Ethnological Museum Berlin 11d.jpg, Tepukei (ocean-going outrigger canoe) from the Santa Cruz Islands collected by Dr Gerd Koch
File:Statues Uli (musée de Dahlem, Berlin).jpg, Uli Figures
File:Surfboard, Hawaii, 1887 - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC01245.JPG, Hawaiian surfboard from 1887
File:Ethnologisches Museum Dahlem Berlin Mai 2006 008.jpg, Feather capes from Hawaii
File:Melanesien-Abteilung Berlin-Dahlem Ethnologisches Museum.jpg, The Melanesian room, with reconstructed houses
File:Ethnologisches Museum Berlin Nordamerika 020.JPG, Figure of a bear from the Pacific Northwest Coast
File:Yupik mask EthnM.jpg, Yupik mask
File:Mesoamerican collection at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.jpg, Exhibit featuring artefacts from Mesoamerica
File:Ethnologisches Museum Berlin Mesoamerika 019.JPG, Maya vase with writing
File:Ethnologisches Museum Berlin Mesoamerika 003.JPG, Monumental stone carving of a skull from Mesoamerica
File:Brautschmuck Tolima 1 EthnM.jpg, Gold Tolima ornament
File:Totenmaske Berlin-Dahlem.jpg, Pre-Columbian death mask
File:Guanyin 1 EthnM.jpg, A Chinese wooden sculpture depicting Guanyin, Song Dynasty, 12th century AD
File:Inka Figurine EthnM.jpg, Inca figurine
File:Jina Rishabhanatha with 23 additional Jinas, Rajasthan, Western India, dated Samvat 1201, 1144 AD, brass inlaid with silver - Ethnological Museum, Berlin - DSC01585.JPG, Rishabhanatha with 23 additional Jinas, India, 12th century

Architecture

The museum's first building in the center of Berlin on Königgrätzer Straße (now Stresemannstraße at the corner with Niederkirchnerstraße) was already too small to accommodate the collections when it opened in 1886. The situation deteriorated further in the last years of the 19th century, as the collections expanded rapidly because of increased institutional support for ethnology and the growth of the German overseas colonial empire after the Berlin Conference.

By 1906, the first construction began on a second facility for the museum in Dahlem. The museum intended to use space in Dahlem to store and conduct research on the large collections, but to continue to exhibit portions of the collection in the building in the city center. Plans were developed for a large complex in Dahlem, consisting of four large buildings, one for each of the non-European geographical regions of the globe: Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, the latter department directed by Konrad Theodor Preuss. Construction began in 1914, the architect Bruno Paul was commissioned to build the structure to house the Asian collections on Arnimallee, Dahlem. The work was stopped, however, because of the First World War and was only completed in 1921. However, the museum lacked the resources to erect the other three planned buildings. The museum continued to function with two separate facilities housing its collections until the Second World War.

Following the Second World War, as a result of the division of Berlin, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation decided to house the portions of the Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery) that were returned to West Berlin in the Bruno Paul building. This decision required moving the collections of the Ethnologisches Museum to a new facility. The architect Fritz Bornemann developed plans for an extension to the Bruno Paul building, which was erected from 1966 to 1970. The Bornemann building faced onto Lansstraße with an uncompromisingly modernist pavilion and contrasted sharply with the older neo-classical Bruno Paul structure, with its main entrance on Arnimallee.

Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1993-021-25, Berlin, Völkerkunde-Museum.jpg, Royal Museum for Ethnology
Die Gartenlaube (1887) b 549.jpg, Covered courtyard of the Royal Museum for Ethnology
Haupteingang Museum Europäischer Kulturen,Arnimallee 25. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Foto von Ute Franz-Scarciglia2011.jpg, Main entrance of the Bruno Paul building
Berlin's Dahlem Museum in April 2014.jpg, Entrance to the Bornemann building for the former Ethnological Museum in Dahlem
Ethnologisches Museum Eingangsbereich.JPG, Foyer of the Ethnological Museum

References

* Peter Bolz: ''Die Berliner Nordamerika-Sammlung des Prinzen Maximilian zu Wied.'' S. 88–91 in: Nordamerika Native Museum, Zürich (Karin Isernhagen): ''Karl Bodmer. A Swiss Artist in America 1809–1893. Ein Schweizer Künstler in Amerika.'' Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich, 2009. .
* Michael Falser: ''Gipsabgüsse von Angkor Wat für das Völkerkundemuseum in Berlin – eine sammlungsgeschichtliche Anekdote.'' In: ''Indo-Asiatische Zeitschrift'', Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Indo-Asiatische Kunst Berlin 16/2012, S. 43–58.
* Viola König (ed.): ''Ethnologisches Museum Berlin''. Prestel, München u. a. 2003, .
* Markus Schindlbeck (ed.): ''Expeditionen in die Südsee. Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung und Geschichte der Südsee-Sammlung des Ethnologischen Museums''. Reimer, Berlin, 2007, .
* Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch:. "Zur Geschichte des Museums." In: "Hundert Jahre Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin," special issue, ''Baessler-Archiv: Beiträge zur Völkerkunde'', n.s., 21 (1973): 1–99.
* Bénédicte Savoy, Inutilité scientifique. Travaux sur les collections camerounaises de Berlin au XXe siècle. In: Collectif (éds.)
Atlas de l'absence. Le patrimoine culturel du cameroun en Allemagne
Berlin 2023, (english working translatio
online
] Berlin 2023, p. 239–273.

Directors

The following is a verified list of directors of the Ethnologisches Museum in Berlin. Some names do not yet have English Wikipedia entries but are available on Wikidata or in the German Wikipedia.
* Leopold von Ledebur (1829–1873)
* Adolf Bastian (1873–1904)
* Felix von Luschan (1904–1910)
* Albert Grünwedel (1904–1921)
* Eduard Seler (1904–1922)
* F. W. K. Müller (1906–1928)
* Carl Schuchhardt (1908–1925)
* Bernhard Ankermann (1921–1924)
* Konrad Theodor Preuss (1921–1934)
* Albert von Le Coq (1923–1925)
* Walter Lehmann (1927–1934)
* Otto Kümmel (1933–1945)
* Walter Krickeberg (1945–1954)
* Hans-Dietrich Disselhoff (1954–1970)
* Kurt Krieger (1970–1985)
* Klaus Helfrich (1985–2001)
* Viola König (2001–2017)
* Lars-Christian Koch (2017– )

Footnotes

External links

*
Museum website

Flickr
205 images
Outlining the Kümmel Report: Between German Nationality and Aesthetics

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ethnological Museum Of Berlin
Museums in Berlin
Ethnographic museums in Germany
Buildings and structures in Mitte
Art museums and galleries in Berlin
African art museums
Mesoamerican art museums
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Museums established in 1873