The Australian Museum: Australia's Oldest and First Museum

The country’s oldest museum, the Australian Museum, is Australia’s leading natural-history institute. Established in 1827, just 40 years after the arrival of the First Fleet, the Australian Museum houses an extensive animal, mineral and fossil collection and is at the forefront of innovative research into environmental science and indigenous history and culture.  

Set in a grand, neoclassical sandstone building on College Street in Sydney, the Australian Museum features three levels of permanent exhibits and interactive displays, and also hosts touring exhibitions and events throughout the year. 

The natural history collection encompasses displays on geography, geology, minerals and living creatures, with a vast catalogue of insects (including the world’s largest collection of bark lice) and a somewhat-creepy-but-nevertheless-fascinating gallery of taxidermied birds, mammals and reptiles. Life-sized models of extinct Australian megafauna loom large in the Surviving Australia gallery, including a two-tonne wombat and a number of authentic specimens of the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. The dinosaur collection houses eight complete skeletons and features rare fossils of recently discovered Australian dinosaurs.

The anthropological wing of the museum has a comprehensive Australian and Pacific Island collection as well as displays on Asia, Africa and the Americas. The unique artifacts on display range from a crocodile mask from Torres Strait to an ancient Egyptian coffin and a superb gallery of classical Balinese paintings. 

For those interested in Australian aboriginal history, culture and sociology, the Australian Museum is a invaluable resource. The Indigenous Australia section traces the history of the continent’s first peoples from their arrival some 40,000 years ago, through to the European invasion and the ongoing trials and triumphs of indigenous communities in the present day. The Australian Museum cares for nearly 25,000 ethnographic artifacts collected from hundreds different Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander cultures. Around 1,000 Aboriginal objects of a secret and/or sacred nature are held separately from the main collection: access to these can be arranged through the Aboriginal Heritage Unit.

Australian Museum Sydney Natural History tourist attraction museums aboriginal cultural anthropology animals dinosaurs