Anthropology Department Museum, of Delhi University, in Delhi. This epicenter of Anthropology is situated in the Arts Faculty building. A major issue of pride for this ethnographic museum, is that the venerated First Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, was its ardent patron. Nehru used to subscribe ethnographic samples and cultural articles from his personal possession for the betterment of this unit. This man of pre-eminence also visited the museum.
Jawaharlal Nehru`s illustrious daughter, and efficient Prime Minister, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, sustained the glory of the legacy, left over by her towering father.
The history of the Anthropology Department Museum, Delhi, is imbued with the splendor of the dignitary-visit .The renowned Prince of Wales, Prince Charles , arrived at the museum in 1980.
The Department has gone a long way, towards development or prosperity. A Department which possessed a faculty of two members in 1947, has underwent an awesome increase of 22 members, one research scientist, associated with a number of research associates, research fellows and scholars.
Museum is an integral constituent of the department of anthropology. The Anthropology Department Museum, enriches the learning process of all the branches of the discipline of anthropology.
This Museum is one of the most important anthropological museums in the country. It has the best array of exhibits and demos.
The wide spectrum of display-objects includes, culture-oriented items, focusing on the various aspects of social and economic kinds, like, hunting and food-gathering, fishing, horticulture, animal-rearing, farming and agriculture. Musical instruments, pertaining to multiple societies are preserved too in the Museum. Another prime attraction is the fascinating range of illustrative models of multifarious dwelling-patterns and lifestyles of Indian tribes.
Costumes and accessories, arms and weapons, make for a distinct segment in the Museum. The paper concentrating on cultural ecology in B.Sc. (Hons.) final year, calls for a consultation with the research-data and artifacts of the ethnographic Museum, for proper acquisition of knowledge.
The Anthropology Department is a great resource-mine for the teachers and the students involved in the study of Prehistoric archeology. It is so, because, the museum has a myriad assembly of stone and bone tools. This invaluable collection is related to different geological time-scales, beginning from the Palaeolithic to the Bronze Age.
It is curious enough to learn that every year this rare reserves undergo a hike. This is because, it is customary for the students of B.Sc. (Hons.) second year , to venture out for their subject-excursion to a place of archaeological significance. There, they accumulate many captivating anthropological as well as archaeological things that are ultimately stored in the Museum.
Furthermore, the Anthropology Department Museum, Delhi University, is endowed with a fascinating repository of the Museum also had a handsome collection of the moulds of human fossil. Embalmed great apes and the bones of the non-human primates will continue to arrest people`s attention for ages. All these material are indispensable for physical anthropological enterprise.
The Anthropology Department Museum, Delhi University, is a praiseworthy effort on the part of the advance-minded anthropology Department. Their sincerity and commitment has given anthropology, a wide horizon, larger than ever before.