AFRICAN MUSEUM TERVUEREN/BRUSSELS

It is an ideal weather when it's cold and rainy to visit a museum. That's what we decided to do. I know the museum since 1959 when I had been moved to Belgium by my parents. The German school was not so far so we often went there and were sitting in this boat which was just exposed at the entrance and had a lot of fun with the masks and the statues. Nobody had told us the history of the museum and we didn't think any further.

 

Leopold II the second King of Belgium had bought the Congo for himself  and when he died he gave  it to the Belgian State. The museum was built with the intention to show the white Belgian people the animals, people, masks etc. He died before the works were completed, and it was King Albert I who inaugurated the museum on 30 April 1910. At that time nobody went on holidays to Africa and had no idea of what was living there. The Museum was called Museum of the Belgian Congo.

After it's renovation which lasted 5 years it became the "African Museum". It is not concentrated on the Congo anymore and lots of artifacts which had been stolen were returned to the Congo. You can read the whole history of this museum here

  This is the museum I have always known, without the modern annexes

Claudie and I with our pet

These statues were made out of spoons !

on the right side the old museum and on the left the new annexed modern building

all animals are stuffed, very well preserved and very old as I have seen them when I was a teenager ! Many of them were taken away, as you can see them alive in animal parks.

The skulls on the left above are from monkeys

There were quite a lot of masks exposed with the inscription "unknown origin" which is an elegant word for "stolen" by the colonists.

There also were a lot of strange music instruments, here is a huge xylophone

The poor pangolin was suspected to have brought us the Corona Virus. In Africa it is an appreciated food

musical instruments

A view through the window on the beautiful park

The stuffed animals must be very old as they were there already at the inauguration by King Albert I

The last pictures were taken in the ancient building as you can see at the decorated ceiling and the tiles.

more participants here