The National Museum of Gitega (french: Musée National de Gitega, rn, Iratiro ry'akaranga k'Uburundi) is the
national museum
A national museum is a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In other countries a much greater numb ...
of
Burundi
Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
. It is located in
Gitega and was founded under
Belgian colonial rule in 1955. The museum is the largest of
Burundi's public museums although its collection is displayed in a single room. In 2014 it averaged 20–50 visitors per week.
Founded in 1955, the museum was intended to preserve artefacts from Burundian folk culture which were declining as a result of
modernisation
Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
and social change. Its collection includes
ethnographic and historical objects originating in the country, including artefacts from the court of the
Burundian monarchs.
[ The lack of funds has meant that the museum has made few recent acquisitions.][
In 2015, a catalogue of the museum's collection was published with the support of the German Embassy in Burundi entitled ''Le Patrimoine Burundais: le Musée de Gitega''.]
References
Further reading
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Museums in Burundi
National museums
Buildings and structures in Gitega
1955 establishments in Ruanda-Urundi
Ethnographic museums in Africa
Gitega
Museums established in 1955
Ruanda-Urundi