Copperbelt Museum to Transform Focus Into Science And Technology

Gethsemane Mwizabi

19 May 2011

Museums are vital institutions of heritage and cultural preservation of any nation.

It is through museums that people begin to learn about the institutional character of a nation. A nation can be known through its values and history.

As a matter of fact, it is hard to deal with the present and future without reference to the past. Thus, the importance of museums cannot be underestimated.

The Copperbelt Museum, is trying its best to educate the public by focusing science and technology.

In commemorating this year’s International Museums Day, which fell yesterday on May 18, and whose theme was; ‘ Museums and Memory’, the institution sees history as a foundation for the future.

Museums keep in their collections numerous documents that are basic to the memory of communities people live in.

Many of these items are fragile, some endangered.

In any case, they need special care and conservation and often times more money for attending to both.

Thus, the International Museums should direct public attention to these basics of collective memory, to the fragility of its carriers, and heed the importance and meaning of their contents.

So visitors may come to better understand the value of documents and that they would be willing to help in caring about their contents and their conservation.

According to International Committee Museums chairperson Lothar Jordan,

museums should arouse awareness in visitors about the necessities when dealing with documents.

Students, young people generally, artists, could react to documents in different ways as museums do keep as material evidence of what happened in the past.

Museums can then be an extremely valuable source of creativity, particularly organisations such as art galleries or photography exhibitions, as many people find they are inspired and subsequently want to try such activities themselves.

Like any other museums around the world, the Copperbelt Museum’s mission is to protect and conserve Zambia’s heritage for posterity enabling people now and in the future to understand, appreciate and enjoy the variety of the country’s national heritage.

The Copperbelt Museum, has lined up activities that have been rescheduled to tomorrow May 20, to accommodate yesterday’s burial for the 13 Ndola youths that died in the road accident in Chifubu on Sunday.

Anyhow, Information obtained from the museum reveals that it was established

in 1962 when the steering committee of civic and mine leaders met in Ndola to form the Copperbelt Museum Association with a sole aim of establishing a living gallery of natural resources, with the emphasis on ecology, conservation, geology, mining and local history.

By 1963, the association had acquired a substantial collection from the Livingstone Museum, and South Africa’s Natal Museum for exhibition at Caravelle House, which still stands today on Buteko Avenue.

As the collection grew, Kitwe and Ndola Municipalities got interested in having the proposed museum built in their respective towns.

In 1964, Ndola won as a suitable site because of central location with easy access by road, rail ands air.

With Zambia’s independence, in 1964 and creation of the National Museums Board in 1966 under the new Museums Act, the Copperbelt Museum was in 1968 gazetted as a second

state owned museum after Livingstone Museum.

The same year, the ever

growing collection was moved to Bwafwano House on Buteko Avenue, until 1978 when the museum moved to its present premises in Buteko Avenue.

It is among four museums in Zambia, namely Livingstone, Lusaka and Moto Moto in Mbala.

It is the second to have been established by European settlers in the early 1960s.

Copperbelt Museum director Chipo Simuchembu says plans are underway to shift the museum to a new and spacious site on the Mufulira roundabout overlooking the new stadium.

“We have lots of collections that need to be adequately housed.

We have been limited by space where we are,” he said.

The museum has a number of galleries with a number of artifacts in them.

These include geology, ethnography, natural history, temporary exhibition and education services.

The gallery of geology depicts a range of objects related to the geological history of the Copperbelt and an antiquity of copper mining in Zambia.

Several mineral rocks-carbonate rock, amethyst, manganese, iron ore, copper, malachite, shale and limestone are exhibited.

Others are products of copper mining and refinery-Copper bar, anode, cathode as well as slimes waste and cascade sludge (residues) that result from the smelting and refinery process.

In addition the gallery displays a narrow range of objects relating to human evolution and cultural development in Zambia, from Stone Age to Iron Age.

The gallery ends with objects relating to social life in mine towns.

The gallery of ethnography displays an array of material culture of the peoples of Zambia, and how these people have through time harnessed and utilised the resources of their environment to express art, religion, technology, economy and socio-cultural organisation.

Exhibits include musical instruments, dancing masks, ceremonial axes and other royal/ritual regalia. Others include household utility objects, fishing basketry, and manufacturing tool kit-hummer, scraper, drill, needle, and platform-for processing skins and bark into garments, bags and sandals.

Displayed also are objects associated with rites of passage- initiation and marriage- and those relating to witchcraft.

At the Natural history gallery, there is a narrow range of exhibits of small mammals and varied collection of birds of Zambia from fish eagle, the country’s bird freedom to a kingfisher.

Exhibited is a varied and fascinating collection of moths and butterflies.

The gallery ends with fascinating mural displays of wildlife resources in Zambia.

Most birds are exhibited in their natural habitats, including the peaceful eagle and the patient vulture.

According to Mr Simunchembu, the idea behind the gallery is to arouse interest and public awareness of the need to conserve Zambia’s wildlife resources for posterity.

The temporally gallery is reserved for special and rare exhibitions on selected themes and objects.

Such exhibitions are usually put up on loaned objects, or objects drawn from the Museum’s storage rooms,

where most of the collection is curetted and preserved.

Stored collection can be made available on request to scholars and researchers for study or for reference purposes.

Special exhibitions usually run for periods not exceeding three months, and are very educative for they provide a rare opportunity to visitors to see, study and appreciate the unique value of Zambia’s rich heritage.

The museum’s primary role is to preserve history for posterity, for the future generations.

History itself has important intangible benefits.

It provides information on developments in the past as a basis for lessons and improvements in the future.

History through museums therefore, allows the preservation of visual and audio

developments that can help shape the future.

Another important aspect of the museum is education.

Not only does the museum act as a medium of learning but also facilitates the

acquisition of knowledge.

AllAfrica – All the Time