Mathers Museum of World Cultures

The Mathers Museum of World Cultures is an ethnographic collection at Indiana University housing more than 40,000 objects and images from around the world. The collection includes crafts, tools, clothing, and everyday items that show how people in different regions lived and worked.

The museum was founded in 1963 as the Indiana University Museum and gained official recognition in 1971. It moved to its current building in 1980, which was named after William Hammond Mathers.

The museum displays objects from Africa, Latin America, and indigenous cultures that show how people lived and created their crafts. Visitors see how different societies solved similar problems and expressed their values through the things they made.

Visit on Tuesday through Friday or Saturday when the museum is open to the public. The facility is located on North Indiana Avenue in the central university area and is easy to reach on foot.

The museum houses specialized laboratories where experts continuously work on preserving and analyzing the collection. These research spaces allow scholars to examine the materials and techniques used in objects from ancient cultures.

Location: Bloomington

Operator: Indiana University

Website: http://indiana.edu/~mathers

GPS coordinates: 39.17000,-86.52611

Latest update: December 14, 2025 18:12