Egypt in South Africa

Various individuals and bodies, from as early as the late 19th century, donated ancient Egyptian artefacts to the SA Cultural History Museum (SACHM) in Cape Town, South Africa.  more>>

One hundred highlights from the Social History Collections

This selection of 100 objects is only a very small proportion of the hundreds of thousands of objects in the Social History Collections Department. It showcases objects of iconic national significance and of historical and cultural interest.  more>>

The Meermin Project

The Meermin Project is an attempt to look for the wreck of the Dutch Slaveship that wrecked on the Southern Cape coast in March 1766.  more>>

Heritage of slavery in South Africa

This series of pages  tells the story of slavery at the Cape of Good Hope. Unlike the Transatlantic slave trade that exported slaves from Africa, this slave society existed in Africa.  more>>

Personal histories of the Groot Constantia slaves as reflected in the slave register (1816 -1834)

Slavery today is outlawed in most countries and in 1948 the United Nations issued a Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 4): "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms". Despite this it is believed that 27 million adults and children are still enslaved to oppression, and it is also estimated that there are at present more slaves than ever before.  more>>

Ulwazi lwemvelo - indigenous knowledge in South Africa

The South African Museum aims to increase public awareness of indigenous knowledge in southern Africa by providing a space for exhibiting the products of this knowledge, discussing related issues and encouraging people to preserve their intellectual heritage. Indigenous knowledge refers to traditional knowledge that is handed on from generation to generation in communities.  more>>

Cross-section through Norfolk Island pine in Iziko South African Museum

Noteworthy events during the lifetime of this tree, planted about 1850 in the Botanic Gardens, now the Public Gardens, Cape Town.  more>>

African Cultures Gallery

The present exhibition in the African Cultures Gallery was installed in the early 1970s, and was intended to show the essential features and patterns of material culture among the various groupings of indigenous people in southern Africa. These groupings were defined according to cultural and linguistic criteria that were intended to enable the reconstruction of social systems that no longer existed at that time, but this caused the displays to present cultural patterns as if they were static and timeless.  more>>

Past Exhibitions

Links to online versions of past exhibitions.  more>>