Museum of Archaeology Museums

The Museum of Archaeology in Southampton displays artefacts from prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and medieval Southampton. It also has objects from outside Southampton, including some from ancient Egypt. God's House Tower itself is a fascinating historic building.

God's House Tower stands at the south-east corner of the town walls which had once encircled medieval Southampton. The whole structure is really an amalgamation of two buildings; a simple gatehouse, built in the late thirteenth century and extended in the early fourteenth century, and a massive spur work, an early fifteenth- century addition consisting of a two-storey gallery and a three-storey great tower.

Southampton's collections include a small number of interesting and unusual items which are apparently unrelated to the city. The provenance of most of them is unknown - they may have formed part of the Hartley Collection, given to the city in 1912 - or are donations to the museum from local people who had travelled or lived abroad.

These objects come from all over the world. They include:

Drums and musical instruments, spears and shields and personal ornaments from Africa

Wooden clubs from Polynesia

Aboriginal tools and a boomerang from Australia

Native American stone arrowheads

Balinese sculpture

A stone figure and ceramics from Central America

There is also archaeological material from ancient Greece and Egypt. .