The KZN Museum is celebrating its 120th birthday with a historic exhibition and the unveiling of 120 objects from its vast collection!
KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (30 July 2024) — The KwaZulu-Natal Museum is celebrating its 120th birthday this year!
Founded in 1904, the KZN Museum has been a cornerstone of cultural, historical, and natural heritage in South Africa. It connects the public to important parts of the country’s heartland through an array of exhibits and specimens.
To mark this momentous occasion, the KZN Museum will launch a special temporary exhibition during Heritage Month in September. There, 120 significant objects from its time-spanning collection will be in the spotlight!
Excitingly, this will be the culmination of an ongoing online series revealing the 120 objects, some of which can already be found online via the Museum’s websites and social media platforms.
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A place where curiosity, wonder and cultural and natural appreciation intersect, diverse exhibits and snippets of history call the KZN Museum home, including:
- The largest collection of taxidermied African mammals under one roof displayed in their natural habitats
- The well-preserved remnant of the last wild elephant in the province
- A life-size model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex
- A recreated historical scenes such as a Drakensberg cave
- A 1860 nighttime Pietermaritzburg Street scene,
- A submarine scene in the Marine Gallery
- Remnants of a shipwreck in the Portuguese gallery.
The museum also includes exhibits of paleontological finds, original rock arts and stone tools dating back over 1 million years. With a wide variety for any history buff or culture vulture to appreciate, each visit to the museum offers a little something for everyone to be enthralled by.
“The KZN Museum plays a vital role in education and community engagement. School visits to the museum of valuable educational experiences, aligning exhibits with school curricula and making abstract concepts tangible,” says Chief Public Relations and Marketing Officer Viranna Frank.
“These visits foster curiosity, cultural understanding, and a love for lifelong learning. Parents are encouraged to bring their children to the museum to inspire a sense of pride in heritage, promotes the importance of preservation, and explore diverse fields that may inform future career interests,”
While the KZN Museum has thousands of items on display, it also houses an extensive collection of artefacts, specimens, artworks and documents that are not on permanent display due to preservation concerns and limited exhibition space.
In more good news for its future, the KZN museum is also excited to announce plans for a new museum facility with construction expected to start next year and be completed in 2029. The new space will allow for exhibition expansion, improved preservation efforts and offer more interactive and engaging experiences for visitors.
Pop in at 237 Jabu Ndlovu St in Pietermaritzburg.
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