The Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum is a museum of ethnography in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It was reopened in 2010. The museum arose from a collection of over 3500 items belonging to ethnographer Wilhelm Joest. After his death in 1897, the collection was left to his sister Adele Rautenstrauch. In 2018, the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum returned a tattooed Maori skull, which had been in its collection for 110 years, to a delegation representing the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. Usually known as Te Papa ( Māori for ' the treasure box'), it opened in 1998 after the merging of the National Museum of New Zealand ...

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

; the skull was purchased in 1908 by the first director of the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum, Willy Foy, from a London dealer.Catherine Hickley (July 13, 2018
German museum returns tattooed Maori skull to New Zealand
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''.

References

Museums in Cologne Ethnographic museums in Germany {{ethnographic-museum-stub