The Pitt Rivers Museum displays the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford. This museum is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and can only be accessed through that building.
The museum was founded in 1884 by Augustus Pitt Rivers, an English officer, ethnologist and archaeologist born in 1827. Rivers donated his private collection to the University of Oxford with one condition: That he was appointed a permanent lecturer in anthropology. A second stipulation was added in the Deed of Gift: that a building would be provided to house the collection. This building could not be used for no other purpose. The original donation consisted of approximately 22,000 objects.
