Collections and Exhibitions
The museum houses a large collection of Māori and Pacific Island artefacts and treasures, including for example three entire buildings, including Hotunui, a large carved meeting house built in 1878 at Thames, and Te Toki a Tapiri, a waka taua (war canoe) from 1830. The museum also stores a photographic collection of 1.2 million images, and stores and exhibits 1.5 million natural history specimens from the fields of botany, entomology, geology, land vertebrates and marine biology. The stated goal is to eventually possess specimens from all New Zealand species.
There is also an extensive permanent exhibition covering wars, both within New Zealand and New Zealand's participation in overseas conflicts. This exhibition is linked to the War Memorial (see below), and for example shows models of Maori pas (earth fortifications) and original Spitfire and Mitsubishi Zero aeroplanes. The Museum holds the largest collection of applied and decorative arts in New Zealand and selections are currently displayed in the Landmarks and Encounters Galleries.
The museum also offers changing special exhibitions. In the recent past (2006), these have included a Da Vinci and a Vikings exhibition. The initial exhibition after the grand re-opening in early December 2006 was 'Vaka Moana', a show about the first Polynesian explorers reaching New Zealand. Afterward, the exhibition started travelling the world for several years. Currently (early 2009), the museum is host to a cast of the most complete (over 90%) Tyrannosaurus rex fossil ever found, nicknamed "Sue".
Read more about this topic: Auckland War Memorial Museum
Famous quotes containing the word collections:
“Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)