Museum has it all

Press, 30 December 1982, Page 12

Museum has it all

Creepy spiders, stuffed animals and skeletons are just some of the items to go “ooh” over at the Canterbury Museum. Take Aunt Agatha or little Suzie and her school mates to see the many displays varying from the composition of the earth to contemporary , Japanese painting.

Wet or fine, many educational hours, can be 'spent within the maze of fine exhibits. One of the newest is the display case of ivory and African hardwood ornaments expertly turned by John Llewellyn Davies, who died in Christchurch in 1939. Mr Davies was a skilled

mechanical engineer and was the co-founder and managing director of the Canterbury Engineering Company, Ltd. His intricately turned ornaments can be found through the door opposite the museum’s information counter.

But the long-standing displays still hold fascination even for those who visit the museum regularly. For instance, the Egyptian mummy in the hall of human history is showing a bony heel through her bandages as proof that she really is in there. This woman of rank was placed in her painted wooden coffin about 150 B.C. The drawers of the chests containing those great hairy spiders and other monstrous creepy-crawlies must have been opened countless times during the last 80 years. And they are still as popular as ever.

Another very interesting department is the Maori history section with its jewellery made from clusters of enemies’ or ancestors’ teeth. One pendant is made from someone’s kneecap while another is made from a small portion of human skull. Canterbury's early history section with its large, stuffed horses, Cobb and Co. coach, detailed smithy and schoolroom displays, and its street of early Christchurch remain popular — there is some- * thing there for everyone. Entrance to the museum is

free, but donations are appreciated. It is open from 10 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. every day except Sunday when it is open from 2 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.