Museums in Asante

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Date
2009-08-09
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Abstract
The searchlight of this research is thrown on historical and artistic museums in the Asante kingdom which has in their collection a legacy of rich cultural history and unique arts that have received much recognition all over the world. The arts are kept in various museums in Asante and other museums in and outside Ghana. The documentation of artefacts in the history and art museums in Asante needs to be stepped up in order to preserve and promote the cultural heritage of the people since it would provide a platform for tourists, anthropologists and educational institutions to gather information from the works and appreciate them. The museums are faced with a number of problems which range from curatorial to maintenance functions. There is evidently less publicity and the documentation of the artefacts and relics are improperly done especially with respect to bringing them under one roof to possess a common force to expose the culture to the public. These problems therefore create a fertile ground for the documentation of museums to meet modern trends, which to the present researcher if well done, would serve as an educational pool of knowledge for Asante culture. Since the research involved a couple of visits to the various museums in Asante, well structured interviews were carried out with the various officials of the museums. Also in-depth observation of the various artefacts was made. This resulted in the use of the descriptive and qualitative methods of research for the thesis. Data collected from the various officials served as the researcher’s primary data and the library research serves as secondary source of the data. The research contains its finding as a documentation of artefacts of the Prempeh II Jubilee Museum, Manhyia Palace Museum and the Armed Forces Museum. It is highly recommended that curators of the various historical and art museums should make things easy for researchers interested in museum study. This suggestion is being made by the present researcher because of the thick and thin he went through before gaining a bit of rapport with the various curators of the museums. If a simple laid down procedure is made and followed, it would lessen the burden of research in these areas and researchers would be able to write to educate on museums and their relevance in one’s ethnic culture. In conclusion, deductions from data confirm that documentation of the various museums under one umbrella could not only go long way not only to project Asante culture but also raise the image of the museums in Asante as a way of attracting tourists and other scholars to the Ashanti Region.
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A thesis report submitted to the School of Graduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (African Art and Culture).
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