The Pitt Rivers Museum

Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum cares for one of the world’s great collections, with more than half a million archaeological and ethnographic objects from across the world, many donated by early anthropologists and explorers.

The Museum was founded in 1884 when Lieutenant General Pitt-Rivers, an influential figure in the development of archaeology and evolutionary anthropology, gave the University his collection of some 20,000 objects. In addition to the objects on display, the museum holds an important archive of historic photographs, such as those by Sir Wilfred Thesiger from Arabia, as well as sound recordings and manuscript material. The Pitt Rivers has always been an active teaching department of the University and continues to collect through donations, bequests, special purchases and through its students in the course of their fieldwork.