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Iziko South African Museum

Where is it?

Iziko South African Museum is one of twelve sites managed by Iziko Museums of Cape Town. It is situated near the top end of the historic Company's Garden in Cape Town, at 25 Queen Victoria Street, Gardens. The Museum can be visited Mondays to Sundays (10:00 to 17:h00), but is closed on Christmas Day and Good Friday. You can call the Museum on (021) 481-3800 or (021) 481-3805.

What is on display?

This beautiful museum houses a vast collection of animals ancient and modern. Displays range from dioramas depicting life up to 300 million yeas ago to a recently opened major exhibiton called SharkWorld, with a reconstruction of the jaws of Megalodon (an extinct giant shark that makes the great white look small!!) and everything you ever wanted to know about these fascinating creatures of the deep. The latest exhibit, "Stone Bones of the Ancient Karoo", which opens on 22 September 2005, will feature some of the best and most complete skeletons of 250 million-year-old mammal-like reptiles. You will also be able to marvel at spectacular examples of ancient rock paintings from the southern Drakensberg and coastal areas, as well as rock engravings from the Northern Cape and Namibia.

The Planetarium provides insights into the origin of our universe.

Ongoing research

Iziko South African Museum palaeontologists, palaeoecologists and archaeologists specialize in researching African Origins. Ongoing research programmes include topics such as:

• The ammonite faunas of southern Africa and their use in determining the sequence/age of the rocks in which they occur. (Ammonites are extinct relatives of the squids with external shells that were used for flotation.)
• Past life on Earth and long-term environmental change based on studies of fossils from the Karoo regions.
• Reconstructing the background to human evolution during the last two million years from the remains of small mammals in archaeological and palaeontological sites.
• Reconstructing past human behaviour and environments from artefacts and bird and large mammal bones in archaeological and palaeontological sites.

Interesting fact

Iziko means a "hearth" in Xhosa. Hearths are the social centres of homes. They are associated with warmth, kinship and the ancestral spirits.

The museums of Iziko are centres of cultural interaction where knowledge is shared, stories told and treasures of our cultural and natural heritage are enjoyed.

For more information: www.museums.org.za/iziko/izihome.html