Throughout history there have been institutions established to hold on to evidence of the past and objects of interest from the world around us. Museums around the world hold a vast repository of things that are significant, interesting, strange, unique or that should be preserved. Over time museums have changed from housing mere collections of curios to places that have become deeply involved in research while educating, entertaining and generally engaging the public. One of Australia's greatest museums, Sydney's Australian Museum, has undergone a renovation recently, keeping up with the constant changing face of museums around the world.
WHAT IS A MUSEUM? 
A MUSEUM is a cultural institution that preserves physical evidence of natural or human history. The role of a museum is generally to hold on to those objects, specimens and artefacts and to allow researchers, including the museum's own staff, to study the collections and educate the public about them or to advance knowledge. Many museums are attached to, or affiliated with, larger learning institutions, or have their own research institution. Some museums have a very specific focus - such as those dedicated to cars, birds, weaponry or minerals - while others have a broad range of objects. Many museums only display a small part of their collection at any time, rotating collections to keep the public interested or even bringing in special exhibitions from outside the museum and showing them in dedicated exhibition spaces.
FIRST MUSEUMS THE first collections of artefacts resembling museums were gathered by ancient collectors. In the 6th century BC, the Mesopotamiankings Nebuchadrezzar and Nabonidus both collected antiquities. Nabonidus taught his daughter, Princess Ennigaldi-Nanna, to appreciate old objects, and she arranged her own collection in rooms in the palace at Ur complete with labels explaining them in three languages. There is evidence that the Greeks and Romans arranged votive offerings of artworks, objects and curiosities people brought to their temples and displayed the more interesting or curious ones to the public, charging viewers a fee. The ancient Chinese also gathered the finest examples of arts into academies established to promote the arts.
PRIVATE TO PUBLIC COLLECTIONS FOR centuries, from the medieval era to early modern times, many of the greatest collections of objects were not on public display but belonged to nobles, monarchs or religious bodies. These collections would be shown to limited audiences of invited guests at palaces or the faithful in places of worship. But in the 16th century some wealthy families or individuals began to develop public spaces to display their impressive collections. Italy's Medici family displayed its collection in its Uffizi gallery (pictured) and others made bequests of collections to the public. In the 17th century during the Enlightenment people were looking for better ways to collect all knowledge and sift more systematically through physical evidence, so there were efforts to bring more order to collections. There were also more efforts to show them in a meaningful way to a wider audience. One of the earliest came about as a gift of a collection owned by Edward Ashmole to Oxford University, with the proviso that they build a place to display his collection. It became the Ashmolean Museum and opened in 1683.
BRITISH MUSEUM MANY of the biggest museums in Europe had their origins in the 17th to 18th centuries. The institutions that would have the most influence on Australian museums were the ones established in Britain. The British Museum, founded in 1753, was the first free public museum in the world. The museum was built primarily on the collection of Sir Hans Sloane, who bequeathed his entire collection to King George II. The king in turn donated a private royal collection to add to the museum and it was housed in Montagu House, which is still part of the museum today. It officially opened its doors to "all studious and curious persons" in 1759.
MUSEUMS OF AUSTRALIA IN Australia there are many impressive collections. Many towns across Australia have their own museums dedicated to local history, while some have more unusual museums often dedicated to some aspect of local landscape, culture, industry or history. There are several maritime museums around the country, for example, showing our strong connections to the sea.
AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM SYDNEY - ORIGINS BY the 19th century most countries had established great public museums. In 1827 Earl Henry Bathurst, the British secretary of state for the colonies, wrote to NSW governor Ralph Darling asking him to establish a public museum. Bathurst said he would make available a sum of Â£200 "per annum, to be disbursed for the purpose of assisting in the accomplishment of this object" and recommended Darling hire a "young man" named William Holmes to "assist in collecting and arranging such specimens, as it may be possible to procure in that quarter". Holmes, originally a cabinet-maker, was given the title of Colonial Zoologist, and sent to Australia to begin collecting. Bathurst's letter said the government couldn't authorise the construction of a building without first looking into how much it would cost, so initially it was housed wherever there was space. In 1830 it was moved to a building that had once served as Sydney's post office.
AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM - A PURPOSE BUILT HOME IN 1831 Governor Darling granted land in Hyde Park for the construction of a combined library and museum. However, the collection spent another decade wandering around Sydney until construction began on a purpose-built space to house it in 1846 and in 1849 the collection moved from a courthouse at Woolloomooloo. The museum finally opened its doors to the public in 1857 but at the time it had only a single gallery. Over the decades more galleries would be added and the museum evolved from collections of objects, skeletons and stuffed animals mostly in glass cases into a modern museum with more varied displays. In the 1920s the first dioramas were installed, showing wildlife in its environmental context. In later decades, video and audio elements were added and more recently computer interactive displays.
DID YOU KNOW?
The museum's first head, colonial zoologist William Holmes, was a carpenter from Lancashire. He may have been chosen for the role because he could build display cases for the items in the collection. He took up his position in 1829 but died in 1831 while on a collecting expedition to Moreton Bay (now in Queensland but then still part of NSW) when his gun accidentally discharged.
The word museum comes from the Ancient Greek word mouseion, which means "house of the muses". Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus who were goddesses of the arts and sciences. The ancient Greek mouseions were places that celebrated the arts and sciences, places where writers, artists and philosophers (which included what we now call scientists) could go to study and contemplate.
The Australian Museum in Sydney has a genuine Egyptian mummy dating from the Late Period, 26th Dynasty-saite period (664-525 BCE). Although the identity is unknown, scans have revealed the body to be that of a woman not more than 60 years old. The mummy was excavated in 1900 and donated in 1912.
Originally known as the Colonial Museum or the Sydney Museum, the museum was formally renamed the Australian Museum in 1836.
SOURCES AND FURTHER STUDY:The Australian Museum http://australianmuseum.net.au/