Ethnological Collection

The Ethnological Collection was established within the University’s Academic Museum, which was founded in 1773. By the mid-19th century, it had also become an administratively independent unit. Specialist teaching in ethnology began in Göttingen in 1928. A detailed account of the collection’s history up to the present day (2024) can be found here. A comprehensive overview of the collection’s first 150 years or so is available here.

At the Institute of Ethnology and the Ethnological Collections, in addition to the work carried out by the collections staff, a number of provenance research projects funded by external grants have been undertaken. These include:

• “Tracing Nazi-Looted and War-Plundered Holdings in the Library of the Institute of Ethnology at the University of Göttingen” (funded by the German Lost Art Foundation; application submitted by Dr Gundolf Krüger; research associate Beate Hermann).
• “Acquisition histories in the light of new provenance research. The Ethnological Collection of the University of Göttingen from 1933 to 1958” (funded by the German Lost Art Foundation; application by Professor Roman Loimeier; researcher Beate Hermann).
• “Tjurungas in the Ethnological Collection of the University of Göttingen” (funded by the German Lost Art Foundation; application by Dr Michael Kraus; researcher Josefine Neef).
• “Signs of the ‘Sacred’ – Objects from Australia in the Göttingen Ethnological Collection” (funded by the German Lost Art Foundation; application by Dr Michael Kraus; researcher Josefine Neef).
• “The New Relevance of Old Objects – Cataloguing Unprocessed Collections in the Ethnological Collection of the University of Göttingen” (funded by zukunft.niedersachsen, formerly Niedersächsisches Vorab; application by Dr Michael Kraus; researcher Dr Ndzodo Awono).
• “Collections from Indonesia Dating from the Colonial Period in Lower Saxony” (funded by the German Lost Art Foundation; grant application by the Museums Association of Lower Saxony and Bremen (Museumsverband für Niedersachsen und Bremen e. V.); a collaborative project involving eight institutions in Lower Saxony, including the Göttingen Ethnological Collection; research associate Roberta Zollo).

Since 2018, the Ethnological Collection has been a project partner in the Lower Saxony provenance research network PAESE.

Inventories of the collection were produced in printed form between 1988 and 1993 and have been publicly accessible ever since. In 2019, scans of these inventories were made available for free download on the Ethnological Collection’s website. The website also features links to online databases where records relating to objects from the collection can be accessed.

An overview of how those responsible for the Ethnological Collection have dealt with restitution claims since the 1970s can be found here. The same volume also contains examples of provenance research and collaborative projects.

In recent years, the collection has welcomed visitors from Cameroon, Tanzania, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Fiji and Venezuela, amongst others, to take part in joint viewings and collaborative work.

Information on the collection’s activities, including collaborations, visits, research projects and publications relating to the critical re-examination of the collection’s holdings from a colonial perspective, can still be found here.

Topics such as colonialism, racism and provenance research are regularly addressed in courses in anthropology. They are incorporated into introductory modules, thematic courses, lecture series, such as “Decolonizing Anthropology” in the Winter Semester 2023/24, and the online teaching units on museum ethnographic practice. Provenance research is also undertaken as part of Bachelor’s and Master’s dissertations. Outstanding dissertations are published in the GISCA Occasional Papers series.

The Ethnological Collection also lends items for exhibition projects that address the themes mentioned, for example “Racism: The Invention of Human Races”, German Hygiene Museum, Dresden, 2018/19, and “Colonial Göttingen: From 1874 to 1945”, Municipal Museum, Göttingen, 2024/25.

In 2016, more than 300 artefacts were returned to Łódź (Poland). The artefacts had been taken to Germany during the Second World War, whilst Poland was under German occupation.

In 2020, two Toi Moko (tattooed and mummified skulls, tūpuna, ancestral remains) were repatriated to the relevant people of the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Programme at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington, New Zealand. A short video of the handover ceremony, featuring explanations from the Māori representatives, can be found here.

Following a request from the Institute of Ethnology and the Ethnological Collection, the Presidential Board of the University decided in 2021 to express its willingness to return the “Benin Bronze” held in the collection.