The Nicholson Museum was an
archaeological
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
museum at the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public university, public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one o ...
home to the Nicholson Collection, the largest collection of
antiquities
Antiquities are objects from antiquity, especially the civilizations of the Mediterranean: the Classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, Ancient Egypt and the other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. Artifacts from earlier periods such as the Meso ...
in both Australia and the Southern Hemisphere. Founded in 1860, the collection spans the ancient world with primary collection areas including
ancient Egypt,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
,
Italy,
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...
, and the
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
.
The museum closed permanently in February 2020, and the Nicholson Collection is now housed in the Chau Chak Wing Museum at the University of Sydney, open from November 2020. The museum was located in the main
quadrangle of the University.
Introduction
The Nicholson Museum was named after its founder,
Sir Charles Nicholson. In 1856-57, Nicholson traveled throughout Egypt and then Italy where he acquired the first thousand or so primarily ancient
Egyptian,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, South Italian and
Etruscan artefacts. These he donated to the University in 1860. The museum's collection grew exponentially since this founding donation. Individual benefaction, donations, sponsored archaeological
projects and curatorial acquisition have all contributed to the wealth of material in the Nicholson Collection.
[
The museum had a mixture of permanent and temporary exhibition areas within its gallery. Permanent or ongoing exhibitions included: Egyptians, Gods and Mummies: Travels with Herodotus, Aphrodite's Island: Australian Archaeologists in Cyprus; The Etruscans: A Classical Fantasy; Tombs, Tells and Temples: Excavating the Near East as well as a permanent display of artefacts from the Greek and Italian Classical world. Temporary exhibitions included: LEGO Pompeii, featuring a large scale model of the site of Pompeii in LEGO and 50 Objects, 50 Stories – which was moved to Chau Chak Wing Museum upon the closing of Nicholson.
The Nicholson Museum, along with its sister institutions, the Macleay Museum and the University Art Gallery, were united under a single director, David Ellis, in 2003 to form Sydney University Museums. In 2005, Michael Turner was appointed Senior Curator.
]
Permanent collections
The permanent collections of the Nicholson Museum spanned the ancient world with primary collection areas including the Classical world of Greece and Italy, Egypt, Cyprus, the Near East and Northern Europe from the Neolithic to Medieval periods. The Collection also includes a significant historic photograph collection of over 1,350 glass negatives taken by former curator William J. Woodhouse.
Egyptian collection
The ancient Egyptian collection included artefacts from a variety of ancient sites including Abydos, Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...
, Bubastis
Bubastis ( Bohairic Coptic: ''Poubasti''; Greek: ''Boubastis'' or ''Boubastos''), also known in Arabic as Tell-Basta or in Egyptian as Per-Bast, was an ancient Egyptian city. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical ''Pi-Beseth'' ( h ...
, Fayum
Faiyum ( ar, الفيوم ' , borrowed from cop, ̀Ⲫⲓⲟⲙ or Ⲫⲓⲱⲙ ' from egy, pꜣ ym "the Sea, Lake") is a city in Middle Egypt. Located southwest of Cairo, in the Faiyum Oasis, it is the capital of the modern Faiyu ...
, Heliopolis, Memphis, Saqqara
Saqqara ( ar, سقارة, ), also spelled Sakkara or Saccara in English , is an Egyptian village in Giza Governorate, that contains ancient burial grounds of Egyptian royalty, serving as the necropolis for the ancient Egyptian capital, Memph ...
, and Thebes. Egyptian material formed a large part of Sir Charles Nicholson's founding donation. He traveled throughout Egypt between 1856 and 1857 purchasing artefacts from dealers in Cairo and Luxor as well as collecting artefacts straight from sites, including Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Construc ...
where he collected a fragment of a red granite thought to be from Hatshepsut's obelisk.
Cypriot collection
Beginning in 1860 with a single artefact from the original donation by Sir Charles Nicholson, the collection grew exponentially, especially under the curatorial direction of firstly William Woodhouse (honorary curator 1903-1938) and then James Stewart (honorary curator 1954-1962). Many of the artefacts within the collection were sourced directly from Stewart's own excavations conducted at Bellapais Vounous, Karmi Palealona, Karmi Lapasta, Nicosia Ayia Paraskevi and Vasilia Kafkallia as well as from the excavations of at the sites of Myrtou Stephania and Myrtou Sphagion, conducted by Stewart's former student Basil Hennessy, who later became Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Sydney. As a result of these acquisitions, the Museum held many complete tomb groups of archaeological importance.
Greek collection
The Nicholson Collection's Greek collections contains artefacts representative of the material culture of the Greek mainland, islands and surrounding regions, from the Bronze Age through to the Late Hellenistic period. During Sir Charles Nicholson's travels to Egypt and Europe between 1856 and 1858 he acquired, primarily in Rome, a range of Classical and Hellenistic Greek ceramics as well as terracotta figurines. In total over seventy significant Greek artefacts were included in the founding donation of the Nicholson Museum. Further material, representative of the Greek mainland and islands, was bought during the curatorship of A. D. Trendall. His proactive acquisition program involved purchasing a wide range of ceramic types of Greek origin as well as significant contributions of sherd material for teaching purposes sought from prominent museums and individual collectors and scholars, including Sir John Beazley
Sir John Davidson Beazley, (; 13 September 1885 – 6 May 1970) was a British classical archaeologist and art historian, known for his classification of Attic vases by artistic style. He was Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art at the ...
. The collection was then expanded following a donation of hundreds of pottery fragments and small votive objects by the family of former curator William J Woodhouse in 1948. The majority of this material is thought to have been collected during Woodhouse's 1890s and 1930s trips to Greece, documented in the Woodhouse photographic collection.
Italian collection
The Italian collection is representative of the diversity of the ancient Italian world with significant cultural material from Etruria, South Italy and the Roman World. From the museum's foundation the cultures of ancient Italy have been strongly represented in the collection. Sir Charles Nicholson spent considerable time in Rome collecting Latin inscriptions, Etruscan funerary urns and bronzes, South Italian vases and Roman lamps, figurines and ceramics. Additional large sculptural works were also acquired by Sir Charles including two life-sized togatus statues along with several fragmentary figures. The Italian collection was further developed with the acquisition of a significant corpus of South Italian vases by A.D. Trendall during his curatorial tenure. Many of the significant pieces from the South Italian collection were comprehensively published in the first ''Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum'' of an Australian collection.
Near Eastern collection
The Nicholson Museum's collection of Near Eastern artefacts represented many of the great cities and civilisations that flourished along the Levantine coast, across Mesopotamia and through to Pakistan and India. The Near Eastern collection began with just a handful of artefacts from Ur, donated by the British Museum in 1926. This was greatly expanded upon in the mid 20th century by the acquisition program of the curators A.D. Trendall and his successor James Stewart. Both curators wrote countless letters to museums and government agencies around the world requesting representative samples of artefacts to ensure the Nicholson Museum's holdings reflected the diversity of this expansive region. The University of Sydney also contributed financially to archaeological excavations and projects in the Near East, most notably Dame Kathleen Kenyon’s excavations at Jericho
Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho G ...
. In return for the University's support the Nicholson Museum received a consignment of objects at the end of each season including full tomb groups from the Bronze Age and rare finds such as our Neolithic over plastered skull. Other items have been acquired through generous donations of individual archaeologists, including Sir Leonard Woolley
Sir Charles Leonard Woolley (17 April 1880 – 20 February 1960) was a British archaeologist best known for his excavations at Ur in Mesopotamia. He is recognized as one of the first "modern" archaeologists who excavated in a methodical way, k ...
and Sir Flinders Petrie
Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie ( – ), commonly known as simply Flinders Petrie, was a British Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and the preservation of artefacts. He held the first chair of Egypt ...
, as well as from archaeological institutes, museums and private donors.
Temporary exhibitions
LEGO Pompeii
A modern display of Pompeii built with LEGO was featured in Nicholson museum. Professional LEGO builder Ryan McNaught assembled the work. The display showed Pompeii as it was the moment of destruction, as it was when rediscovered, and as it is today. The exhibit appears to be an attempt to appeal to contemporary audiences, and especially a younger generation, including current HSC ancient history students, as Pompeii is an early part of the curriculum taught. Upon seeing the exhibit it is apparent that a lot of work has gone into it (around 470 hours). The deep red glow – only noticeable from the rear of the piece – foreshadows the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, which destroyed the town. The exhibit attracted new audiences to Nicholson Museum.
See also
* List of museums in Sydney
References
External links
Nicholson Museum
Sydney University Museums
{{authority control
Museums in Sydney
Archaeological museums in Australia
University of Sydney buildings
University museums in Australia
1860 establishments in Australia
Museums established in 1860
Camperdown, New South Wales
2020 disestablishments in Australia
Defunct museums in Australia
Museums disestablished in 2020