The National Museum of Ethnology is inseparable from the history of Portuguese anthropology. In it, a fundamental dimension of the work of the pioneers of this discipline in the country is projected. From the Center for Ethnology Studies, which he has directed since 1947, Jorge Dias and those who will accompany him in subsequent years, Margot Dias, Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira, Fernando Galhano and Benjamim Pereira, among others, begin an extensive and continuous research on elements of material culture that, years later, would also be collected to form the museum’s collections. The path of that anthropologist will lead him and Margot Dias to the north of Mozambique where, in successive periods of fieldwork, starting in 1957, they will build a solid ethnography about the Maconde people. The partial result of that investigation will be the subject of an exhibition held in Lisbon in 1959 and it is in this context that the explicit intention of creating a Museum of Ethnology arises. In 1965 the museum was created with the ambitious program of representing the cultures of the peoples of the globe, not being restricted, therefore, neither to Portugal nor to the overseas domains under its administration.
Capacity: 250
Contact Person: Secretary
Contact number: +351213041160
Website: https://mnetnologia.wordpress.com/about/
Facilities: Toilets, Bar
GPS: 37.673857, -8.656502