Museu Nacional de Antropologia, National anthropology museum in Ingombota district, Luanda, Angola
The Museu Nacional de Antropologia is a museum housed in a two-story building with fourteen exhibition spaces displaying over 6000 objects from Angola's history. The rooms present artworks, artifacts, and photographs that document the cultures of Angola's different peoples.
Founded on 13 November 1976, the museum was the first museological institution created in Angola after independence the previous year. It was set up as a scientific, cultural and educational institution for collecting, researching, conserving and disseminating Angolan cultural heritage. On 17 May 2022 the Goethe-Institut Angola handed the Angolan Ministry of Culture the translated multi-volume object list of the Angola collection of Berlin's Ethnological Museum, under a cooperation convention between the Berlin and Luanda museums.
The museum displays traditional musical instruments like the marimba and masks representing Bantu rituals from across Angola. These objects reflect the spiritual practices and artistic traditions that remain important to local communities today.
The museum occupies a two-story building in the Coqueiros neighbourhood of Luanda's Ingombota district, with its 14 rooms split across both floors. The mask room and the iron furnace are among the highlights to seek out, and staff give a marimba demonstration. Temporary exhibitions change alongside the permanent collection.
On 17 May 2022 the Goethe-Institut Angola handed the Angolan Ministry of Culture a translated, multi-volume list of the Angola collection held at Berlin's Ethnological Museum, under a cooperation agreement between the two museums on conservation, restoration and re-examining their colonial-era histories.
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