Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
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The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national
museum, located in Wellington. Known as Te Papa, or "Our Place", it opened in
1998 after the merging of the National Museum and the National Art Gallery. More
than 1.5 million people visit every year.
Te Papa Tongarewa translates literally to "container of treasures". A fuller
interpretation is ‘our container of treasured things and people that spring from
mother earth here in New Zealand’.
Te Papa's philosophy emphasises the living face behind its cultural treasures,
many of which retain deep ancestral links to the indigenous Māori people. The
Museum recognises the partnership that was created by the signing of the Treaty
of Waitangi, te Tiriti o Waitangi, in 1840.
The five main collections areas are Arts, History, Taonga Māori, Pacific
Cultures, and Natural History.
Online access to Te Papa's collections is available at Collections Online.
The History Collection includes many dresses and textiles, the oldest of which
date back to the sixteenth century. The History Collection also includes the New
Zealand Post Archive with around 20,000 stamps and related objects, and the
Pacific Collection with about 13,000 historic and contemporary items from the
Pacific Islands.
There are significant collections of fossils and archaeozoology; a herbarium
(WELT) of about 250,000 dried specimen; a collection of about 70,000 specimen of
New Zealand birds; significant amphibians, reptiles and mammals.
The museum has the world's largest specimen of the rare colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis
hamiltoni). It weighs 495 kilograms (1,091 lb) and is 4.2 metres (14 ft) long.
The squid arrived at the museum in March 2007 after being captured by New
Zealand fisherman in the Ross Sea off Antarctica.
The cultural collections include collections on photography, Māori taonga
(cultural treasures), and Pacific cultures.
Te Papa has a mixture of long term exhibitions of cultural objects, hands-on and
interactive exhibitions, cultural spaces and touring exhibitions. The long term
exhibitions of cultural objects focus on New Zealand history, Māori culture and
New Zealand's natural world.
Getting There
This tourist attraction is well serviced by public transport including taxis,
buses and shuttle.
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