The Ashmolean Museum

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What does it contain, where is it, and why to visit...

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The Ashmolean collection was actually started by the Tradescant family in London in the first half of the seventeenth century, who exhibited pieces from their home. It later passed to Elias Ashmole (1617-92). Ashmole in turn bequeathed it to the University of Oxford, and� ensured his name would be immortalised.

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It was decided to allow members of the public access to the collection as well as academics and University students. And thus, as the doors opened for the first time on 24 May 1683, was born the idea of a public museum.

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Where is it
As befits its� place at the heart of British academic life, the Museum sits in the centre of Oxford, in a magnificent classical building on Beaumont Street completed in 1846.

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Architect Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) was also an archaeologist and a leading name in the study of the history of architecture. His knowledge of the great classical buildings of Ancient Greece informed his designs for the Museum.

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What can be found inside
To give it its full title, this is the Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology. Starting with art first, then, the collections are divided into a number of departments:

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The Department of Western Art features paintings from Renaissance Italy and seventeenth century Netherlands, the French Impressionist Camille Pissarro, and the work of the Pre-Raphaelites - founders Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais are all represented, as are associated names such as Ford Madox Brown and Sir Edward Burne-Jones.

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The Department of Eastern Art houses one of the most significant collections in Britain, ranging from early Chinese ceramics to Japanese porcelain and Indian sculpture.

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The Cast Gallery is the home of ancient sculpture at the Museum. It also includes the Beazley Archive, an academic treasure-trove of photographs, prints, books and� notes on ancient sculpture.

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The Heberden Coin Room is a growing section of the Museum and currently celebrates its 75th anniversary. Home to some 300,000 coins and medals, there are examples from Ancient Greece and Rome, the Byzantine, Islamic, Indian, and Chinese worlds.

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The Department of Antiquities has a number of� priceless objects in a collection that spans the ages and spans the globe. Amongst the highlights:

• The Weld-Blundell Prism, made of baked clay with four equal sides, is inscribed on each face with closely written columns of cuneiform script, the ancient writing of Sumeria. It has been dated to c.1800BC.
• The Metrological Relief, a carved stone from 5th century BC Greece, demonstrates the standard units of measurement of the Ancient World - the fathom, for example, being fingertip to fingertip between two outstretched arms, or about six feet.
• The Parian Marble was first brought to Oxford in 1667. It is the earliest extant example of a chronological history of Greece, recording events as far back as 1581 BC, including the Fall of Troy.

Great. When can I go
Opening hours are 10am-5pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, 2pm-5pm Sundays amd most Bank Holidays (not the Cast Gallery). During June, July and August the Museum stays open until 7.30pm on Thursday evenings.

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For more details call the Museum: (01865) 278000
or visit the website: http://www.ashmol.ox.ac.uk/