Ethnological Museum of Berlin

The Ethnological Museum of Berlin (

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.^[4]

In 2022, a group of 23 artifacts from the collection, including precious jewelry and pottery, was returned indefinitely to Namibia.^[5] The items were taken between 1884 and 1915, when Namibia was part of the German Empire colony German South West Africa.^[6]

Selected works

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  Gold pendant from West Africa
• 
  Fang Ngil mask from Cameroon/Gabon
• 
  Statue of a Bangwa king with twins
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  Throne of King Nsangu of Bamum ('Mandu Yenu')
• 
  Lulua figure (the Leopard chief)
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  Seat with ancestral figures
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  Chokwe figure of a queen or queen mother
• 
  Tepukei (ocean-going outrigger canoe) from the Santa Cruz Islands collected by Dr Gerd Koch
• 
  Uli Figures
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  Hawaiian surfboard from 1887
• 
  Feather capes from Hawaii
• 
  The Melanesian room, with reconstructed houses
• 
  Figure of a bear from the Pacific Northwest Coast
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  Yupik mask
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  Exhibit featuring artefacts from Mesoamerica
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  Maya vase with writing
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  Monumental stone carving of a skull from Mesoamerica
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  Gold Tolima ornament
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  Pre-Columbian death mask
• 
  A

  Song Dynasty

  , 12th century AD
• 
  Inca figurine
• 
  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.^[3] 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

• 
  Royal Museum for Ethnology
• 
  Covered courtyard of the Royal Museum for Ethnology
• 
  Main entrance of the Bruno Paul building
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  Entrance to the Bornemann building for the former Ethnological Museum in Dahlem
• 
  Foyer of the Ethnological Museum

References

• Peter Bolz: Die Berliner Nordamerika-Sammlung des Prinzen
  ISBN 978-3-85881-236-0
  .
• 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,
  ISBN 3-7913-2995-2
  .
• Markus Schindlbeck (ed.): Expeditionen in die Südsee. Begleitbuch zur Ausstellung und Geschichte der Südsee-Sammlung des Ethnologischen Museums. Reimer, Berlin, 2007,
  ISBN 3-496-02780-0
  .
• 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.