NORFOLK Museums & Archaeology Service
Object Handling

Ethnography Collections

Pueblo Indian pot, San Cosmos, Arizona, USA. Dated c.1050 - 1300.The Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery Ethnography Collection comprises almost 200 items from countries in Africa, North America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Arctic, South America, Australia, the Pacific, Indonesia and Asia. Many of the items were collected in the field by the donors, who travelled or worked in distant lands and brought material back to Norfolk. Much ethnographic material was sold to Liverpool Museum in 1956 to replace losses that the museum sustained during the Second World War. This collection is the subject of ongoing research and documentation. From 2004 to 2005 Fiona Sheales, a student at UEA, undertook a study and developed the documentation, wrote about individual items and took photographs of this collection. The fruits of her work have now been put into our collections database.

King's Lynn Museums, Great Yarmouth Museums and the Ancient House Museum at Thetford also have small ethnographic collections.