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The stories behind the Museum’s collections and exhibitions, and the work of our curators, scientists and staff.
Blog Posts
Museum curators, scientists and technicians share stories from the Museum’s collections and their internationally-recognised research. Sign up here and we’ll regularly deliver a blog post to your inbox.
An Artist's Gift
Tue, 26 Jun 2018
In the late 1960s, Canterbury artist Sydney Lough Thompson gifted his private collection of taonga Māori and Pacific objects to Canterbury Museum. Among these gifts is an exquisitely woven kaitaka (fine flax cloak) with an intricate tāniko border.
Stories
Short stories from the collection and behind the scenes at the Museum. For easy access to our short stories, follow us on Facebook or Twitter, or subscribe to our e newsletter.
Ancient Beauty
Fri, 08 Jun 2018
Eyeliner was for everyone in Ancient Egypt. Men, women, peasants, pharaohs and even effigies of the gods sported thick black lines around their eyes. The look had practical purposes as well a fashionable one: the dark lines reduced glare from the sun and helped repel flies which carried diseases.
In Search of Antarctic Dinosaurs
Mon, 26 Mar 2018
Canterbury Museum has loaned a sledge used on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition (1910–1913) and other expedition objects to the Field Museum in Chicago for Antarctic Dinosaurs, a major new exhibition that opens in June 2018.
Great Scott: The Story of a Christchurch Memorial
Fri, 26 Jan 2018
Curatorial Manager Sarah Murray presents the story of the Christchurch memorial to Robert Falcon Scott and the Polar Party who perished on their return journey from the South Pole in 1912.
Online Exhibitions
Selling the Dream
Selling the Dream is a collection of world-class tourism posters promoting New Zealand’s unique attractions in an age before television and the Internet. Created by some of the country’s finest commercial artists, the themes promoted through the posters reveal New Zealand’s developing national identity in the early twentieth century.
