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![]() Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History entrance | |
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Location | 149 Visagie Street, Pretoria, Gauteng |
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Coordinates | 25°45′12″S28°11′4″E / 25.75333°S 28.18444°E |
Type | Cultural history |
Public transit access | Gautrain bus dropoff |
Website | Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History |
Ditsong Museums of South Africa network | |
The Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History is a museum that showcases the various stages and forms of culture in South Africa. It is part of the Ditsong Museums of South Africa. The museum is located in Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa. [1]
The Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History is housed in the old South African Mint building. [1] The museum was amalgamated with the Pretoria-based Transvaal Museum for Natural History (now the Ditsong National Museum of Natural History and the Johannesburg-based South African National Museum of Military History on 1 April 1999 to form the Northern Flagship Institution (NFI).
In April 2010 the new name was launched, and the NFI became Ditsong Museums of South Africa. Ditsong is managed by a chief executive officer and a board, which replaced the three separate previous museum boards.
The collection of the museum includes objects such as excavated archaeological material and artworks, historical documents, archives, various current and historical audiovisuals, Stone Age, Iron Age and historic archaeology sites, historical buildings, and early domesticated animals.
Pretoria, is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa.
The Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, formerly the Transvaal Museum, is a natural history museum situated in Pretoria, South Africa. It is located on Paul Kruger Street, between Visagie and Minnaar Streets, opposite the Pretoria City Hall. The museum was established in 1895 by the former South African Republic, also known as the Transvaal. In 2010 it was one of the founding museums of Ditsong Museums of South Africa.
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The Mapungubwe Collection, held by the University of Pretoria museums in its Old Arts Building, consists of archaeological materials excavated by the former University of Gauteng from the Mapungubwe archaeological site since its discovery in 1933. The collection includes ceramics, metals, trade glass beads, indigenous beads, clay figurines, and artifacts made from bone and ivory, alongside a research collection of potsherds, faunal remains, and other fragmentary materials. In June 2000, the University of Gauteng inaugurated the permanent museum. The collection is maintained on site, serving both educational and tourism purposes.
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The South African National Museum of Military History in Johannesburg was officially opened by Prime Minister Jan Smuts on 29 August 1947 to preserve the history of South Africa's involvement in the Second World War. In 1975, the museum was renamed from the South African National War Museum and its function changed to include all conflicts that South Africa has been involved in. In 1999 it was amalgamated with the Pretoria-based Transvaal Museum and National Cultural History Museum to form the Northern Flagship Institution. In April 2010 Ditsong was officially renamed Ditsong Museums of South Africa and the SANMMH was renamed the Ditsong National Museum of Military History.
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The University of Pretoria is a multi-campus public research university in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa. The university was established in 1908 as the Pretoria campus of the Johannesburg-based Transvaal University College and is the fourth South African institution in continuous operation to be awarded university status. The university has grown from the original 32 students in a single late Victorian house to approximately 53,000 in 2019. The university was built on seven suburban campuses on 1,190 hectares.
Fanie Eloff, (1885-1947) Stephanus Johannes Paulus Eloff was born as the sixth child and second son of Frederik Christoffel Eloff and Elsie Francina Eloff. They lived right next to his grandfather, President Paul Kruger of the Zuid Afrikaanse Republiek on church street in Pretoria.
Timothy Insoll is a British archaeologist and Africanist and Islamic Studies scholar. Since 2016 he has been Al-Qasimi Professor of African and Islamic Archaeology at the University of Exeter. He is also founder and director of the Centre for Islamic Archaeology. Previously he was at the Department of Archaeology at the University of Manchester (1999–2016).
Ditsong Museums is an amalgamation of eight museums in the Pretoria and Johannesburg environs in the Gauteng Province. The museums "have diverse collections covering the fields of fauna and flora, palaeontology, military history, cultural history, geology, anthropology and archaeology."
Pionier Opelug Museum, is a cultural and "living" museum in the eastern suburbs of Pretoria that reflects the lifestyle of early pioneers or "Voortrekkers" of the early 19th century. It is housed in the oldest building in Pretoria, the 1848 House, and the museum is operated by Ditsong Museums of South Africa.
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The DITSONG: National Museum of Cultural History explores South Africa's cultural diversity in various permanent and temporary exhibitions..
The DITSONG: National Museum of Cultural History explores South Africa's cultural diversity in various permanent and temporary exhibitions..
Exhibitions include rock paintings and engravings of the San people;thousand year old Iron Age figurines from Schroda in the Limpopo Province (described as "the best known artifacts indicating ritual behaviour in the Early Iron Age"); the Art Gallery presents an overview of South African culture through time, using cultural objects, crafts, sculpture and paintings and an exhibition on Marabastad is a true example of a cosmopolitan and fully integrated rainbow nation before apartheid.