Ashmolean Museum

The Ashmolean Museum, founded in 1683 is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology.

The Ashmolean is the oldest public museum in the world and has rich collections from around the globe, ranging from range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and across time. Explore wonderful showcases from classical sculpture and the biggest collection of Raphael drawings, to the most significant collection of Anglo-Saxon artefacts apart from the British Museum; and the greatest Chinese collection in the West.

After a the museum’s interior was entirely redesigned in 2009 doubling the gallery space. Visitors can now experience the collections on display in a new and fundamentally engaging way, and the renovation also enabled the creation of a new Education Centre and state-of-the-art conservation studios, among other new facilities.

The Ashmolean Museum was named after its founder, Elias Ashmole (1617–1692), and opened in 1683. It is widely recognised as being the first modern museum. Elias Ashmole was a royalist, lawyer, antiquarian, scholar, and collector who gave his collections to the University of Oxford in 1677. A condition of his gift was that an institution dedicated to the advancement of knowledge should be built to house the collections. The original Ashmolean Museum was constructed near the Bodleian Library. It combined the functions of a repository for rare materials with a centre for research and learning, and was a model scientific institution for the time.

‘I Elias Ashmole, out of my affection to this sort of Learning…have amass’d together great variety of naturall Concrets & Bodies, & bestowed them on the University of Oxford’

Elias Ashmole, ‘Statues Order & Rules, for the Ashmolean Museum’, 1686

What’s on at the Ashmolean

The Ashmolean Museum offers a wide range of events from daily talks and tours to special workshops, late gallery openings and music as well as family fun and hands-on gallery activities.

Events
Visit the Ashmolean website for all current and upcoming events here.

Exhibitions
Current exhibitions and displays at the Ashmolean can be discovered here

Join a different themed tour each lunchtime

Lunchtime Tours take place 1.15–2pm every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tours are free. Places are limited (maximum 15) and are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Meet in Gallery 21 on the Ground Floor.