PAESE

Provenance Research in Non-European Collections and Ethnography in Lower Saxony

The objectives of the PAESE project were

  • basic research on the ways in which ethnological or ethnographic collections in Lower Saxony were acquired, as well as research on related issues in the participating institutions,
  • networking and cooperation with representatives of the respective societies of origin,
  • the establishment of networks regarding provenance research on collections from colonial contexts. These networks are to include not only research conducted in Lower Saxony but also comparable projects in the German-speaking and other European countries,
  • Transparency and initiation of a dialogue about the origin of the objects and their future handling, based on accessibility of the collections under research to all interested parties.

The project was funded by the Volkswagen Foundation from 2018 to 2022. Since then, the digital infrastructure has been continued by the Network for Provenance Research in Lower Saxony. 

Zum Projekt

Spotlights

The Braunschweig Municipal Museum was founded in 1861 by committed Braunschweig citizens, with the aim of housing collections relating to the art and cultural history of the city...

 

Municipal Museum Braunschweig

Collection

The Ethnological Collection of the Georg-August-University Göttingen is one of the most important teaching and research collections in the German-speaking world. Its beginnings date back to the time of the Enlightenment....

 

Ethnographic Collection of the Georg-August-University Göttingen

Collection

The Landesmuseum Hannover, the largest national state museum in Lower Saxony, houses the Department of Ethnology, Archaeology and Natural History as well as the State Gallery. It evolved from the Museum für Kunst und Wissenschaft (Museum of Art and Science), founded in 1856 by civic associations...

 

Lower Saxon State Museum Hanover

Collection

When the Hildesheim Museum was founded in 1844, it was initially named “City Museum” (“Städtisches Museum”). In 1894 it was first renamed “Roemer-Museum” and then got its current name, “Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum”, in 1911...

 

Roemer- und Pelizaeus-Museum Hildesheim

Collection

The State Museum Nature and Man Oldenburg was founded in 1836 by Grand Duke Paul Friedrich August von Oldenburg (1783-1853). The purchase of a collection of insects, birds, and mammals that had been constituted especially for the museum by the Delmenhorst District Physicist Dr. Otto Ernst Oppermann (1764-1851) even dates back to the year 1835...

 

State Museum Nature and Man Oldenburg

Collection

In 1849 Lutheran pastor Ludwig Harms founded the “Hermannsburg Mission” seminary in the small town of Hermannsburg in Lower Saxony, and began training missionaries with the aim of sending them to the Gallas people (today’s Oromo people) in Abyssinia (in today’s Ethiopia). Soon after, in 1853, the first missionaries, farmers and tradesmen left on the purpose-built mission ship ‘Candace’ to start their mission work in Ethiopia. However, access to the intended mission area in Ethiopia had been barred, so the first missions eventually were established in South Africa...

 

Evangelical-Lutheran Mission of Lower-Saxony

Collection