The Collections of the Weltkulturen Museum

The Weltkulturen Museum holds a unique collection of 65,000 ethnographic artefacts from Oceania, Africa, Southeast Asia as well as from North, South and Central America. This is complemented by the collection visual anthropology of some 120,000 historical and contemporary ethnographic photos and films.

Due to spatial limitations, the Weltkulturen Museum exhibits exclusively changing special exhibitions.

Online collection

The museum team is currently working on the presentation of an online collection in order to create access to the extensive collection holdings for communities of origin, researchers and an interested public. Currently, information about the collections of the Weltkulturen Museum can be requested centrally via the department for digital collection management (). We look forward to the exchange!

Parts of the collections of the Weltkulturen Museum are already digitally accessible as part of co-operation projects. You can find an overview here:

1. Digital Benin
   This database provides an overview of Benin bronzes held in German museums. The database is updated regularly: www.cp3c.org/benin-bronzes
2. Mapping Philippine Material Culture
   The project is a visual inventory of Philippine objects from the mid-20th century held in museums and private collections outside the Philippines: https://philippinestudies.uk
3. International Inventories Programme (IIP) 
   The IIP database catalogued 32,321 Kenyan objects held in 30 institutions in 7 countries. This groundbreaking inventory, which is currently no longer accessible online, made Kenya's dispersed cultural heritage searchable and accessible while raising important questions about the objects' history, provenance and cultural restitution. Further information at www.inventoriesprogramme.org