Established | 1962 |
---|---|
Location | Canberra, Australia |
Coordinates | 35°16′42″S149°07′18″E / 35.27827°S 149.12172°E |
Type | Ancient Greece and Rome |
Owner | Australian National University |
Website | Official website |
The Australian National University Classics Museum is a small museum in Canberra. It was established at the Australian National University (ANU) in 1962 as a teaching aid to help students in the Canberra region learn about the ancient Greek and Roman worlds.
The ANU Classics Museum was founded in 1962 by Dick Johnson, the ANU's Professor of Classics. [1] [2] According to a 2011 article in The Canberra Times , Johnson established the museum "so Canberra students could learn about ancient Greek and Roman objects". [2] The museum has been housed in the foyer of the AD Hope building at the ANU's main campus in Acton since the 1970s. [3] A Friends of the ANU Classics Museum group was founded in 1985. [4] By 2004 the museum had a collection of about 600 objects, including several on loan from private collectors and government agencies. Its single curator was reported to not have a regular budget. [3]
On 9 December 2004, it was discovered that five items had been stolen from a glass cabinet at the ANU Classics Museum. While the thieves had forced the cabinet open, there was reported to be no evidence that they had broken into the AD Hope building. [5] The most valuable of the items taken was a bronze head which had once been the property of the Roman Emperor Augustus. This sculpture may have depicted Augustus' wife Livia. [5] [6] At the time of the theft the museum's security arrangements were limited to keeping the collection in locked cabinets and occasional patrols by ANU security guards. All the items in the collection had also been cataloged and photographed. [3] Following the robbery, the Dean of the ANU's Faculty of Arts and an Sydney-based arts dealer speculated that the items may have been stolen to fill an order placed by an overseas collector. [5]
A major refurbishment of the museum during 2010 included new display cases, captions and interpretative panels for items as well as improved lighting. It was reopened on 25 August by ANU Chancellor Gareth Evans. [7] In October 2010, Professor Emerita Beryl Rawson, who had worked at the ANU for 45 years, including as Professor of Classics from 1989 to 1998, left a bequest of $400,000 to the ANU Classics Endowment Fund to support curatorial assistance in the museum and to fund other activities in the ANU Classics and Ancient History Program. [8] [9]
The museum continues to serve as a teaching museum. ANU students enrolled in ancient history and art history subjects are permitted to handle the 650 items in its collection. [2] The museum is also open to the public during weekdays; guided tours may be arranged. [10]
In September 2023, it was discovered that an amphora vase, a fish plate and a Roman marble portrait head were bought by the Museum throughout the 20th century "in good faith", however they were found to have been illegally excavated by its original dealers. The museum announced the objects' repatriation back to the Italian government after a four-year loan agreement for continued display and study in Australia, with the potential for another four-year extension. [11]
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Elizabeth Hume Minchin is an Australian classicist and former professor of classics at the Australian National University (ANU). Until 2014 she was one of the two editors of Antichthon, the journal of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies.
Dirk D. Obbink is an American papyrologist and classicist. He was Lecturer in Papyrology and Greek Literature in the Faculty of Classics at Oxford University until 6 February 2021, and was the head of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project until August 2016. Obbink was also a fellow and tutor in Greek at Christ Church Oxford, from which role he was suspended in October 2019, as a result of allegations that he had stolen some of the Oxyrhynchus papyri and sold them to the Museum of the Bible.
Richard St Clair Johnson was a former academic and senior Australian public servant.
Beryl Rawson was an Australian academic. She was Professor and Visiting Fellow in Classics at the Faculty of Arts of the Australian National University (ANU). Her work "made ANU a significant centre for classical studies".
Amy C. Smith is the current Curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology and Professor of Classical Archaeology at Reading University. She is known for her work on iconography, the history of collections, and digital museology.
Jane F. Gardner was a British Roman historian, academic, and museum curator. She was emerita professor of Roman History at University of Reading, specialising in Roman law and Roman social history. She was a professor at the university from 1993 until her retirement in 1999, having taught there since 1963. She was curator of the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology from 1976 to 1992.
Allan William Martin AM FASSA FAHA (1926–2002) was an Australian historian. He wrote numerous works on Australian political history.
Jan Dunn born in Springvale, Victoria, Australia, was a potter, ceramicist and teacher.