The Western Australia Museum is the heart of Perth's Cultural Centre and houses around 4.5 million objects! The museum was founded in 1891 and today its displays educate visitors about Western Australia's history, nature, Aboriginal culture and, strangely enough, space - it houses a meteorite weighing 11 tonnes! Another interesting exhibit of the museum is the skeleton of a blue whale. The museum's archaeological collection is considered one of the largest in the southern hemisphere. In addition to the two buildings in Perth, the museum complex includes branches in Geraldton, Albany and Kalgoorlie-Boulder, as well as the Maritime Museum and Shipwreck Gallery in Fremantle.
For almost a century - until 1971 - the museum was housed in the old Perth Prison building and was known as the Geological Museum. In 1892, ethnological and biological collections were added to the geological collections, and in 1897 the museum was officially renamed the Western Australia Museum and Art Gallery. In the second half of the 20th century, the botanical collections were moved to the new Herbarium and the museum and art gallery were separated. The museum focused its efforts on collecting anthropology, archaeology, history and natural science objects. In the 1960s and 70s, exhibits related to Aboriginal history and culture began to appear, as well as shipwrecks off the state's coast. The Old Perth Prison building now also forms part of the museum complex as one of the oldest surviving buildings in Western Australia.
Among the museum's permanent exhibitions is the Land and People of Western Australia exhibition, which traces the history of the land from the time of the dinosaurs and the first Aboriginal people to the environmental issues of the present day. You can learn more about the history of dinosaurs in the themed exhibition, which features parts of prehistoric lizard skeletons, as well as rocks from the Moon and Mars. The Katta Jinung exhibition tells about the history and culture of the Aboriginal people of Western Australia. And the Dampier Marine Gallery offers information on the biodiversity of the waters of the Dampier Archipelago. Finally, the Mammal, Bird and Butterfly Galleries feature exhibits of the state's amazing wildlife. For children and adults, the museum has a Discovery Centre that introduces the museum's collections in an interactive way.
A bit about the museum's branches in other cities in the state. The Albany branch is located on the site of the first European settlement in Western Australia. The museum tells about the biodiversity of these areas, the Aboriginal culture of the Nungar tribe and the ancient ecosystems of these areas. The museum in Kalgoorlie Bolder tells the story of the gold rush and the development of the mining industry. At Geraldton you can learn about the development of agriculture in the region, the life of the Yamaji Aborigines and the Dutch shipwrecks. Near here, the famous Dutch ship Batavia sank in the 17th century, the portico of which is now preserved in a museum.
The Museum of Western Australia also conducts a number of research programmes in archaeology, anthropology, marine zoology, history, conservation, etc.
