Mediterranean Collections in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand

Perspectives from Afar

Candace Richards, Elizabeth Minchin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040334089
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Index: Social Sciences

This volume brings together academics and museum professionals responsible for ancient Mediterranean collections across Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand to report on their collections' legacies and their ongoing value for research, education, and community engagement in the twenty-first century.

An introductory chapter offers an overview of the themes that unite these Mediterranean collections: their colonial legacies, their more recent history, and the network of scholars who have fostered their development. Subsequent chapters offer thematic case studies from the perspective of curators, museum professionals, educators, and researchers working with collections across Australasia. They explore several themes, including museum archaeology, provenance studies, pedagogy, and participatory programming and engagement, and they address two issues that are of interest to everyone who engages with museum collections today: restitution and the ethical management and display of human remains. Taken together, these contributions situate the region's collections on a global scale, highlighting their continued relevance in the present and for the future. The volume includes a distribution guide to all known ancient Mediterranean collections in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, a much-needed resource for students, provenance researchers, and museum professionals.

This volume will be of interest to researchers in Mediterranean archaeology and related disciplines, to museum studies scholars and postgraduate students, and to a general audience.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Perspectives from Afar
• 2 From Antefix to Oenochoe: The Provenance History of the Mediterranean Collection at Auckland War Memorial Tāmaki Paenga Hira
• 3 Ancient Coins in Australian Collections
• 4 The Origin of the Australian Institute of Archaeology Collection and Its Purpose Past, Present, and Future
• 5 The Egyptian Collection at the Australian Museum
• 6 ‘A Few Scraps of Pottery and Papyrus’: From Antiquities Collection to Museum at The University of Queensland, circa 1950–1975
• 7 Time and Technology: The Ancient Mediterranean at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney
• 8 Objects from a University’s Antiquities Collection Enhance Ancient World Studies in a Purpose-Built Environment: The Case of Arts West at the University of Melbourne
• 9 To See the World in a Marble Toe: The Graeme Clarke Teaching Collection at the Australian National University’s Classics Museum
• 10 Numismatics and the Currency of Online Access
• 11 Mind the Gap! The Tyranny of Distance for Museum Engagement: UNEMA’s Significance 2.0
• 12 Bridging the Distance between Herakles and Pokémon
• 13 An Evolving University Museum Paradigm: Broadening Participation with the Mediterranean Collections at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney
• 14 Subjective Objects: Using Museum Collections as Catalysts for Social Well-Being and Identity Exploration
• 15 Reimagining Greco-Roman Art in Colour: A Screen-Based Exhibition Interactive at the National Museum of Australia
• 16 Contemporary Antiquities: Exploring Engagements
• 17 Italian Restitution and the Australian National University’s Classics Museum: Realities and Opportunities
• 18 Innovative Approaches to Caring for Ancient Egyptian Mummified Human Remains at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney
• 19 The Use of Tikanga in Caring for Egyptian Mummified Remains in Aotearoa New Zealand
• 20 Distribution Guide to the Mediterranean Collections of Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia
• Index