Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge stands on the university’s Downing Site, where Downing Street meets Tennis Court Road. Its red-brick building, completed in 1913, replaced the original 1884 museum and now houses collections from every continent. The Grade II listed structure incorporates part of Inigo Jones’s choir screen from Winchester Cathedral. A 2013 refurbishment created new archaeology galleries and a ground-floor entrance on Downing Street. The museum belongs to the University of Cambridge Museums group and includes a store in a former nuclear bunker. A research partnership called True Echoes, run with the British Museum, studies historic audio recordings. The museum began with local antiquities from the Cambridge Antiquarian Society and artefacts donated by Alfred Maudslay and Sir Arthur Gordon. Its first curator, Anatole von Hügel, added his South Pacific collection and encouraged students like Gregory Bateson to gather more. The 1898 Cambridge anthropological expedition to the Torres Strait, led by Alfred Haddon and W. H. R. Rivers, brought back material still on display. Later deposits included objects from James Cook’s voyages and a large Ugandan collection returned in 2024. The Gweagal spears brought back by Cook and Joseph Banks are on loan from Trinity College. Visitors enter through the new ground-floor hall, where the Anglo-Saxon Trumpington bed burial is displayed. The Clarke Hall on the same floor covers Cambridge archaeology, while the Li Ka Shing Gallery hosts temporary exhibitions. The Maudslay Hall on the first floor presents anthropology from around the world. Upstairs, the Andrews Gallery shows world archaeology across three centuries. The displays include artefacts from Polynesia, Torres Strait and Uganda, alongside historic photographs and field notes. The building’s architecture and the objects inside together tell stories of human culture and discovery.