Herrnhut Museum of Ethnology, Ethnographic museum in Herrnhut, Germany.
The Herrnhut Museum of Ethnology, founded in 1878, holds around 6,500 ethnographic items, most collected by Moravian Church missionaries between 1878 and 1940. Its collection includes 36 objects brought back by James Cook from his third voyage and Buddhist religious objects. The museum has been closed to visitors since January 2023 for a new exhibition concept.
The museum grew out of a collection begun by Moravian missionaries in 1732, with the first ethnographic objects documented from Ceylon in 1740. Apothecary Bernhard Kinne founded the Museum-Verein Herrnhut in 1878 and opened a historical, ethnographic and natural history museum in rented rooms. A dedicated building on the present site followed around 1900/01, and in 1975 the museum became a branch of the Dresden State Museum of Ethnology.
The collection displays clothing, tools, and everyday objects that show how people in different parts of the world lived and worked. Visitors can see the practical ways communities organized their homes and developed their crafts.
The museum closed its exhibition operations in January 2023 for construction and redesign of the new exhibition concept, so no guided tours are currently offered. The building at Goethestraße 1 was extended from 2010 to 2012 with a depot wing, a new special exhibition and lecture room, a new entrance area and step-free access.
The museum preserves detailed written observations from missionaries that serve as primary sources for linguistics, geography, botany, and zoology research. These notes make the collection particularly valuable for scholars studying these fields.
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