Ashmolean Museum
Sign in to saveAlso known as Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archeology, Ashmolean Museum of Art & Archaeology, Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology
museum in Oxford, England, UK
Key facts
- Established
- 1683 ; 343 years ago ( 1683 )
- Location
- Beaumont Street , Oxford , England
- Type
- University Museum of Art and Archaeology
- Visitors
- 1,072,267 in 2025
- Director
- Alexander Sturgis
- Website
- www .ashmolean .org
via Wikipedia infobox
~29 min read
Encyclopedic overview
The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology (/æʃˈmoʊliən, ˌæʃməˈliːən/) on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University of Oxford in 1677. It is also the world's second university museum, after the establishment of the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1661 by the University of Basel.
The present building was built between 1841 and 1845. The museum reopened in 2009 after a major redevelopment, and in November 2011, new galleries focusing on Egypt and Nubia were unveiled. In May 2016, the museum redisplayed galleries of 19th-century art.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Ashmolean Museum” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.