Ethnography
Collections
The Ethnography Section has a collection of around 180,000 objects, most of which have been collected on site by colonial administrators, missionaries and scientists since 1885. This collection has also been supplemented by many donations.
The figurative sculptures (masks, statues, etc.) are the most famous objects, but the collection also features important series of weapons, cups, combs and various other types of artefacts as well as several thousand objects from America and Oceania (8,000 and 5,000).
The collection of Central Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) is by far the richest collection in the Ethnography Section. Since 1961, the Ethnography Section has extended its field of study to include West and North Africa (this collection includes almost 18,000 objects); the collection from East and southern Africa, which is the most recent addition, already features around 10,000 objects, including almost 4,000 from different pastoral populations.
The original core of the photographic library of the Ethnography Section comprises almost 50,000 archive photographs.
