The exhibition "American Archaeology" presents the great diversity of pre-Hispanic cultures in Meso-, Central and South America from 2,000 BC to the first half of the 16th century. Exhibits include unique stelae from Guatemala with carved reliefs, painted stoneware vessels of the Maya, Aztec stone figures of gods and a selection of gold objects from Central America, Colombia and Peru.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

The store rooms of the Ethnological Museum house close on to 30,000 objects originating from the North American Indians. The exhibition's most important aim is to show an assortment of the abundant holding, which is rich in pieces dating back to the beginning of the 19th century. The main section of the exhibtion is arranged according to five so-called cultural regions: prairie and plains, the south west, California, the north-west coast and the arctic. From each of these regions especially old and valuable collections are on show, the individual exhibits selected with particular focus on their material, economic or ceremonial significance.

At the same time the exhibition tackles the generally held cultural ideas which have profoundly influenced our view of the 'Indian': the clichés about noble and wild savages, Karl May's 'Winnetou' and fairground Indians in Germany among other things.

Nowadays the North American Indians are no longer regarded as an extinct race, an idea often propagandized in the past, but rather as a part of modern American and Canadian society in which they have to claim their place. For this reason, an overview of important historical developments which continue to shape the lives of North American Indians, both on and off the reservations, is presented.

The exhibition begins with a section examining symbolically charged items seen as 'typically Indian': moccassins, medicine pouches, tomahawks and peace pipes, for instance. In the main body of the exhibition, each regional section ends with a selection of modern North American Indian art. These latter sections examine how North American Indians regard themselves against the backdrop of American society and assess the extent to which their culture is alive and creative.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

This exhibition presents a selection of objects from the generous and diverse donation, originally handed over to the museum in 1999, of contemporary examples of folk art taken from all prefectures in Japan. It gives visitors a good sense of how day-to-day objects are used as expressions of good wishes, as well as hopes for good health, long life, the passing of exams or the entering into new phases in life. These amulets are often placed in the entrance areas of Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines as offerings to the appropriate ‘divine’ guardians or patrons.

The exhibition features amulets in the form of figures that are typically placed on view in various parts of the home as a form of protection from dirt, both inside and outside the household. This mixture of tradition and superstition, the playful approach to the often perfectly serious problems of everyday life, exemplifies how modern and traditional mindsets exist alongside one another in today’s Japan. A small wooden shrine containing masks, goblin figures and/or figures made of straw (used in autumn, as offerings for a good harvest) is pictured beside the towering modern building of a department store and embodies this daily juxtaposition of old and new.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

As from 18 June 2004, after nearly two years of refurbishment, the South Sea exhibition of the Ethnological Museum, with the collections 'Melanesia' and 'Australia' are once more open to the public. Built-to-scale Oceanic boats and houses bring the South Sea atmosphere to Europe, creating a true island world experience.

The island world of Melanesia is characterized by an extraordinary diversity of artistic expression, fascinating with its richness of colour and variety of types. The Australian collection illustrates the collection history of the region. Focal points include seafare, architecture, and crafts such as pottery. Through different media, the exhibition also brings to life social aspects such as money and exchange, images of the body, or the relationship between humans and animals. Original prints of pictures taken by the photographer J. W. Beattie let the world of Melanesia arise from the past in front of the visitor's eyes.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

The Ethnological Museum presents its new permanent exhibition of "Art from Africa", starting from 27 August 2005. These masterpieces could previously be seen at the exhibition "Art from Africa" in Brazil in 2003/2004. That exhibition attracted more than a million visitors, and won two awards.
The concept, arrangement and presentation of the exhibition emphasises the significance of art as a central component of the different cultures of Africa. It is arranged in four large groups, starting with an introduction to aspects of the African history of art, followed by figures, performance and design.

The new permanent exhibition makes clear that art from Africa has its own art-historical development, which the Western world failed to understand or recognise for a long time. African art was instead regarded as primitive - a stigma based on the ideology of the colonial age.
Beyond that the exhibition points out that art from Africa, in addition to its religious significance, had a multiplicity of functions in African societies.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

Since November 2007, the Department of Music Ethnology of the Ethnological Museum is being presented in a newly designed exhibition.

The phonogram archive comprises more than 16,000 original recordings and around 2,000 shellac records from all kinds of regions of the world.

The beginnings of the Berlin phonogram archive - and thus the origins of the subject of music ethnology - reach back to the year 1900, when the psychologist Carl Stumpf used an Edison phonograph to record a group of Thai theatre musicians performing in Berlin.

In the summer of 1999, the collection of Edison cylinders kept at the phonogram archive was listed in the UNESCO register "Memory of the World".

Following the tradition of the Berlin phonogram archive, the Department of Music Ethnology at the Ethnological Museum continues to document music culture from around the world. Today, however, modern technology is employed. The archive's holdings have grown to over 150,000 sound recordings.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

Four years after the opening of the internationally well-received 'Art from Africa' exhibition, the Ethnological Museum now presents four new exhibition areas to the public. 'The Kingdom of Benin' and 'Bamum. Tradition and Innovation in the Grasslands of Cameroon' give visitors an insight into the history of Africa by taking two significant parts of the African collection as examples, while the 'Contemporary Art from Africa' room sees several important new acquisitions go on display. The centrepiece of 'Africa in Berlin' is an Ijele mask that was created by a Nigerian artist for the Igbo community in Berlin.

These four new themed areas to the Africa exhibition have also been conceived of in relation to the plans for the African exhibition in the Humboldt Forum, in which the aim is to free the historical African collections from the constraints of being merely regarded from an ethnographic viewpoint. The collections do not so much stand for an exotic far-away continent which proved useful to Europeans in the way they liked to perceive themselves. Rather, they are much more testaments of a social process in which both Africans and Europeans were actively involved.

It is impossible to conceive of the development of the 20th century up to the present day without also taking the history of Africa into consideration. Africa's contemporary culture or questions of migration will be afforded much greater space in the Humboldt Forum as was ever possible in Dahlem.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

Starting in the early 15th century, the Inca rulers soon managed to conquer a gigantic region within an incredibly short period of time. Their empire encompassed more than 100 different ethnic groups in what are today Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and northern Argentina, each with different social and political organizational structures and different languages.

The newly designed section of the exhibition on South American archaeology examines the principles and mechanisms of imperial ideology: what was the nature of the ties between the rulers and the subdued populations? How did the Incas control and secure this immense empire up to the arrival of the Spaniards?

The new exhibition contains over 60 objects of Inca culture, among them knotted cords the Incas used for surveying, rare fabrics, typical clay vessels, stone works and artfully crafted gold and silver works. Each artefact tells of the role it played in stabilizing imperial dominance and maintaining control.

Presented by:

Ethnological Museum

From mid November 2011, the Department of the Islamic Orient will unveil its new permanent exhibition in newly renovated rooms purposefully allotted to its collection. Ethnographic collections from Islamic societies can now go on public display for the first time since the museum's opening in 1970, when it was called the Museum für Völkerkunde.
Spread over a total of 850 square metres in four exhibition rooms, 'Muslims' Worlds' takes a look at various topics that continue to play an important role in the way Muslims perceive themselves and others. Architectural structures, such as the richly decorated wall of a guest house from Afghanistan, serve as the living embodiment of various topics, for instance the gender-specific use of space and the convention, now hotly debated, whereby women are consigned to the private sphere and men to the public.

Magnificent artefacts from Turkestan, now Central Asia, go some way to answering questions as to what material cultural artefacts are able to tell us of the identity of the countries they originate from and what significance historical collections have for these societies now. The complex diversity of the Islamic religion, its orthodox and mystical aspects, as well as the phenomena of everyday religious practice are illustrated through a range of objects taken from various Muslim sources.

All areas of the exhibition include interactive media that give visitors the chance to experience more on the diverse topics and the social debates surrounding them.

Presented by:
Ethnological Museum