Manchester Museum Museums

The Manchester Museum provides access to about six million items from every continent of the globe. Butterflies and carvings from India; birds and bark-cloth from the Pacific; live frogs and ancient pottery from America; fossils and native art from Australia; mammals and ancient Egyptian craftsmanship from Africa; plants, coins and minerals from Europe; art from past civilisations of the Mediterranean; and beetles, armour and archery from Asia.

These collections are divided between the Humanities (Anthropology, Archaeology, Archery, Egyptology and Numismatics) and the Natural Sciences (Botany, Mineralogy, Palaeontology, Petrology and Zoology, which includes Entomology). Like most museums we are only able to display a tiny percentage of our collection, the remainder is kept in store for use in research, temporary exhibitions and other public programmes. We also have a small research collection of live animals (mainly frogs and lizards), many of which can be seen in the Vivarium.

As well as the permanent gallery displays The Manchester Museum has an active programme of chaning temporary exhibitions. It is part of our policy to include a web-based element in all exhibitions. We will be keeping these as a growing archive. .