9th International EURASEAA Conference to be hosted by the MFEA in 2002. The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities will host the 9th International Conference of the EurASEAA (European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists), on May 27 - June 2, 2002 (see announcement below).
Exhibits and Programs during 2001. The Museum currently presents a varied program of permanent exhibits drawing on the museum's rich collections in archaeology and art of East, Southeast, and South Asia. There is a program for renovation of the permanent exhibits, and the museum also has a program of temporary exhibits: March 17 through May 2001 an exhibit is on show with works of art by internationally renowned Korean artist Jin-sook So. The museum also has one of the foremost libraries for Asian studies in Europe and very much welcomes visitors and scholars from all over the world, to visit and study the collections and make use of the library. There are also various ongoing public and scholarly activities. In the spring of 2001 we have the following archaeology-related activities:
March 10, 2001. Lecture by Prof. Staffan Rosén, Stockholm University, on Korean royal crowns (in Swedish).
March 13, 2001. Linda Wåhlander, M.A. Stockholm University, speaks on her participation in archaeological excavations in Korea during 2000 (in Swedish).
April 7. Lecture by Tang Jigen, Institute of Archaeology, Beijing and University College London: New discoveries at Anyang - Capital of Bronze Age China (in English).
May 8. Lecture by Dr. Vincent Pigott, Institute of Archaeology, London: Looking East: Investigating the Ancient Asian Metal Technologies of Copper and Bronze, from Anatolia to Southeast Asia (in English).
Note on the History of the Museum. The history of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (MFEA) goes back to 1926, when the museum was established as a national institution. Foremost among its creators was its founding director, Johan Gunnar Andersson, the Swedish archaeologist and geologist whose name is inextricably linked with the history of Chinese archaeology, and who also worked briefly in Hong Kong and inVietnam in the 1930s. Southeast Asian archaeologists are also familiar with another Swedish scholar closely connected with the MFEA, Olov Janse, who worked in Vietnam and in the Philippines in the 1930s and 1940s. Other outstanding MFEA scholars and past benefactors include Bernhard Karlgren, the famous Sinologist who also took an interest in Dong Son materials, and the late King Gustaf VI Adolf.
In 1963, the museum, which long had lacked a proper home, opened in remodeled facilities in a stunning settingright in the center of the city, on the island of Skeppsholmen, vacated by the Navy. The core MFEA collections of archaeological materials from China's Neolithic and Bronze Age were amalgamated with the outstanding collections of Chinese painting and sculpture from the National Museum, the national Swedish art museum which remains our neighbor. Today, the MFEA holds nearly 100,000 objects, mainly in archaeology and art, from China as well as from Japan, Korea, India, Vietnam, and other Southeast Asian countries. A number of catalogues and monographs have been published in Swedish only, but the museum's noted Bulletin is largely in English. More catalogues are planned. Current lists of available publications can be obtained from the museum (and soon on its website).
In 1999, the MFEA and three other Swedish state-owned museums were re-grouped by Sweden's Parliament to form a new government museum authority, the National Museums of World Culture. This meant that a 1996 proposal to move the collections from Stockholm to Gothenburg, was definitively cancelled. The new, dynamic group formally includes four separate museums. Three are in Stockholm: The MFEA (in Swedish: Östasiatiska Museet); the National Museum of Ethnography (Etnografiska Museet), which holds collections gathered by Sven Hedin during his famous Asian expeditions, as well as Southeast Asian ethnographic materials; and the Museum of Mediterranean and Near Eastern Antiquities (Medelhavsmuseet), which also has splendid archaeological collections.
The group also includes the new museum in Gothenburg (Göteborg) projected to open in 2003, the Museum of World Culture, which will incorporate the collections of the Gothenburg Ethnographic Museum that also includes important Southeast Asian ethnographic materials. While we remain four distinct museums with separate programs, we are also developing exciting new collaboration in research, exhibitions, public outreach and other areas together with our new sister museums.
Address Update: Please note our current phone numbers and postal address (below). The location has not changed, however -- you still find us on the Skeppsholmen "museum island" right in the center of the city of Stockholm.
We hope to see many Southeast Asian archaeologists in Stockholm in 2002!
Magnus Fiskesjö
Director, Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.
Östasiatiska Museet (Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities).
Mailing Address: Box 16176, 103 24 Stockholm, Sweden.
Street address: Tyghusplan, Skeppsholmen, Stockholm.
E-mail: [email protected]
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