Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford

That the architecture is reminiscent of the Natural History Museum in London is interesting, and that the vast open central gallery contains a feast of zoological specimens (including a stuffed albatross that could almost rival me in height) is wondrous, but my favourite part of Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum exists beyond this - a large, dimly lit basement gallery.

'Magic, Masks, Music . . .' reads the virtual tour webpage, the ellipsis particularly useful since this gallery contains more besides, full of intriguing ethnological and anthropological artefacts ranging from sympathetic medicine to rope-making and necrology.  It isn't just the scope and diversity of the thousands of objects, but their manner of arrangement, too: hardwood and single-pane glass viewing cabinets that can be inspected from all sides--save underneath--in which the objects are arrayed according to classifications handwritten on display cards.  The room is an experience of the history of museology as much as a museum.


(Photographs from other galleries in the museum, courtesy of a friend.)

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