Why did museums develop

Today we think of museums as areas that display the past, our culture, or natural history of our world. This certainly has developed to be the modern norm; however, when museums first developed they were for the private display of monarchs, showing war trophies and past societies. This evolution went further development in the Renaissance and Enlightenment, with the rise of intellectual wonder and development of social education.

Early Developments

The world's first museum known to us appears to be from Babylon, now in southern Iraq, found within the palace of king Nebuchadnezzar II, the well known king who sacked Jerusalem in the Bible (Figure 1). Although some scholars claim the title of the first museum should be in the city of Ur, in the temple of Ennigaldi-Nanna, which did house ancient collections, this structure may date to a slightly later time than that of Nebuchadnezzar's displays. During the Neo-Babylonian period (626-539 BC), there was interest in both the distant past, which by that time Mesopotamian urban complex societies were nearly 3000 years old, as well as capturing war booty from within the Empire as it expanded. King Nabonidus, in fact, commissioned the first known archaeological excavations at the time to uncover ancient remains from Ur. In essence, the concept of the museum as a display of the origin of a people as well as of its power was developed. Early museum collections included ancient tablets, statues, and religious relics that would have been seen as continuing to have important relevance. The importance and continuity of ancient religion, in fact, was another motivation to develop museums, in this case within temple complexes.

Figure 1. The so-called Lion of Babylon is likely to be a basalt statue showing an unfished lion attacking a man. The piece was likely recovered in Syria and brought to Babylon to be displayed in its royal museum.

Origin of the Word

The origin of the word museum derives from the Musaeum that once stood in ancient Alexandria in Egypt from around 300 BC and lasted as an institution through the Roman period. This original structure once contained the famous library of Alexandria. While many ancient works, in particular writings, were collected in this institution, its core focus was on education and research. Lectures, presentations, and teaching were conducted here during the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. In essence, it was an institution that became comparable to our modern concepts of universities. Therefore, museums became places of education and research and not simply places that housed ancient objects. Utilizing the knowledge of the past, including from very distant cultures, became one of the key missions of the Musaeum. This is similar in concept to our modern research museums that both display ancient objects but also conduct scientific research.

Figure 2. An artist's reconstruction of the Musaeum.

Early Renaissance

The two oldest continuous museums are found in Rome, the Capitoline and Vatican Museums. The former was essentially a collection of Roman sculptures gifted by Pope Sixtus IV. Discovery of sculptures also inspired the Vatican museum, as Pope Julius II was inspired by the discovery to preserve the pieces in the Vatican's collections. This interest spawns an interest in the Classics in general and a rebirth of ideas and focus on the pre-Christian past. Soon, objects began to be collected not just by officials or religious figures but by wealth individuals. By the 16th century, a new era began, where large collections of artefacts were now collected for their sake, as interest in the past continued. In Europe, the so-called cabinets of curiosities began to be made, which were sometimes large private collections of ancient artifacts, fossils, or other remains that sparked interest in the past. The interest in the past continued as the Renaissance gave way to the Age of Enlightenment, which now began scientific interests as well as simple curiosity to collect.

Birth of Modern Museums

By the 18th century, scientific progress and ever increasing knowledge about the world increased interest in creating large public galleries. Furthermore, similar to the interests of the Babylonian Empire, the new empires of the world, in particular Britain, began to see the collection of artifacts and objects as a way to display power and dominance in the globe. The British Museum was opened based on the principal it would be accessible to the public, although mostly it was the privy of the middle and upper classes, and it began to display the wonders of Britian's every increasing dominance. This continued into the 19th century, where the Louvre and British Museum began a type of competition to collect the best objects from natural and ancient history. Soon, with the increasing collections, museums began to be divided into different types of museums, such as natural history and archaeology. However, it was only by the late 19th century were museums beginning to become more scientific in developing disciplines in studying ancient objects. With the advances made by Charles Darwin on the Theory of Evolution and archaeology becoming a more modern discipline led by Augustus Pitt-Rivers and Flinders Petrie do we see museums now retrieving objects with more care. The collections also now became more studied for greater insight into knowledge about the deep past, including the natural and human-made world.

Summary

The development of museums was not a continuous path. After initial development in the ancient and classical worlds, at places such as Babylon and Alexandria, it took the Renaissance before interest in them begins again. However, it was only in the late 19th century do we see museums becoming more scientific and applying scientific principles in their collection of objects and their study.

References

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