National Museum of Australia

National Museum of Australia Where our stories come alive. On Ngunnawal, Ngunawal and Ngambri Country. The National Museum of Australia is where our stories come alive.
(1915)

We love using social media to share these stories with the world, and engage with diverse audiences. Please be aware that the Museum’s social media channels may include or use names, images and voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Public transport: https://www.transport.act.gov.au/

* Social media community standards *

We aim to keep our social media channels relevant

, engaging and inclusive. We’d like to keep this a pleasant space for everyone, and ask that you are respectful to other members of this community and keep discussions on topic. You are expected to uphold the Museum’s social media community standards, and our moderators apply these standards when monitoring our accounts. We will remove content that is abusive, obscene, discriminatory, disrespectful, inflammatory or offensive. We will remove content that is off-topic, spam or is repetitive posting. We will remove misinformation or misleading information. We will also remove content that is defamatory, breaches copyright, confidentiality and/or moral rights laws. Please notify us if you see something that you feel breaches Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and/or our community standards. Whilst we strive for accuracy, we are human and sometimes make mistakes. If we’ve got something wrong, kindly let us know – we’ll fact-check our content as quickly as possible and correct any errors. You can view our community standards in detail here: bit.ly/34KDEKN

* Queries and account moderation *

This page is monitored and moderated weekdays from 8:30am – 5:30pm (Australian Eastern Daylight Time). During these hours, we aim to respond to relevant queries as quickly as possible and moderate content that does not meet our community standards. Outside of standard moderation hours, responses may take some time. Please free call 1800 026 132 for queries about weekend visits, or refer to our website at www.nma.gov.au. Queries submitted outside of standard operating hours will be reviewed and responded to as quickly as possible during standard business hours. If you have a query about:
- educational research
- our collection
- donating an object to our collection

please email our Duty Curator at [email protected]

Can you guess these ? They cross and twist in pairs to create something intricate. They are often decorated with beade...
28/05/2026

Can you guess these ?

They cross and twist in pairs to create something intricate.

They are often decorated with beaded spangles to help keep the tension even.

Answer coming Tuesday.

27/05/2026

Let’s explore an astonishing continent. 🙌

For over a century Australia has led the way in mapping Eastern Antarctica.

This 1996 docuseries ‘Breaking the Ice’ takes us back to the 1950s, when the expeditioners based at Mawson station were only just discovering what lay beyond the Framnes Mountains.

Today, surveyors continue to map the surface of the continent, while geologists study the earth beneath the ice, a hidden land of mountain ranges, volcanoes and melt lakes that haven’t seen the sky for millions of years.

Antarctica is a free exhibition, opening to the public on July 1.

Tickets are now live: https://www.nma.gov.au/antarctica

This National Reconciliation Week we're sharing Nugal Warra elder Wanda Gibson's artwork, 'No Blood Will Be Shed'. 'Thi...
27/05/2026

This National Reconciliation Week we're sharing Nugal Warra elder Wanda Gibson's artwork, 'No Blood Will Be Shed'.

'This is an important story as it is the first time reconciliation between Indigenous Australians and Europeans happened' - Wanda

The artwork is from a series by the Gamba Gamba (old ladies) group from the Hopevale Arts and Culture Centre. They depict encounters between their ancestors and the crew of HMS Endeavour.

In 1770 at Waalumbaal Birri (Endeavour River), Guugu Yimidhirr people confronted James Cook’s crew after they broke protocols around catching turtles.

Shots were fired and a Guugu Yimidhirr person was injured. Yet, before the conflict could escalate, an elder intervened by breaking the tip of a spear.

Wanda states, “He was saying in his own language, ‘No blood will be shed here.’”

After WWI, state and federal governments coordinated efforts to build farming communities of returned soldiers and their...
24/05/2026

After WWI, state and federal governments coordinated efforts to build farming communities of returned soldiers and their families.

Officials split large pastoral estates into small farms, envisioning that soldier settlers would build prosperous rural communities 🌾

While the scheme was popular, many servicemen struggled due to a lack of farming knowledge, and the land was often too small to be profitable.

This, combined with falling wheat prices and the Great Depression, led to many settlers walking away from the land.

📷: Children sit on bags of wheat on a soldier settler farm in Western Australia, about 1925, Rob Mawson.

This Reconciliation Week, join us at the National Museum for a celebration of Culture and Country. Inspired by the cultu...
23/05/2026

This Reconciliation Week, join us at the National Museum for a celebration of Culture and Country.

Inspired by the cultural arts exhibition, 'From Little Things, Big Things GROW: From Nambour to Canberra', the program honours the vibrant First Nations community project led by Gunggari and Kamilaroi Elder Aunty Jude Hammond.

🌱 Explore the pop-up exhibition
🎵 Enjoy live performances
🎟️ Take part in a coolamon-making workshop with Aunty Jude.

Attendance to the exhibition and all live performances are free.

The Coolamon Cultural Workshop is $35 for general admission, $30 concession, $25 for Museum Friends and $20 for Community.

This incredible artwork is a small section of a tapestry that's 12 metres long!It took 5,500 hours to complete and was d...
22/05/2026

This incredible artwork is a small section of a tapestry that's 12 metres long!

It took 5,500 hours to complete and was done so by 85 women from the ACT Embroiderers’ Guild who volunteered their time to complete it.

Called 'The Crimson Thread of Kinship' it traces Australian history from Aboriginal custodianship of the continent to the Centenary of Federation in 2001, ending beneath the southern night sky.

The Guild donated it to the National Museum of Australia, which opened that same year, as a gift to the nation.

What could this innocuous be? It's stored in a wooden box alongside a compass, brush, tweezers, screwdrivers and a spa...
21/05/2026

What could this innocuous be? It's stored in a wooden box alongside a compass, brush, tweezers, screwdrivers and a spanner.

If you know what this is, let us know in the comments!

We are so proud of our brilliant Council Chair Professor Clare Wright. She has won top prize Book of the Year at the 202...
21/05/2026

We are so proud of our brilliant Council Chair Professor Clare Wright. She has won top prize Book of the Year at the 2026 NSW Literary Awards.

Clare’s book, ‘Naku Dharuk The Bark Petitions’, has now received 11 nominations and won 5 prizes including the Douglas Stewart Prize for Non-fiction. This makes it one of the most accomplished books in Australian literature.

What an amazing achievement, Clare, we celebrate your success.

📸:

Until 1965, tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were subject to regulations that effective...
19/05/2026

Until 1965, tens of thousands of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were subject to regulations that effectively denied them the right to vote in federal and state elections.

First Nations activists and their supporters campaigned for change through organisations such as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA).

Their efforts helped secure the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1962, which gave all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people the right to enrol and vote in federal elections, with the remaining state jurisdictions following over the next three years.

📷: Photograph of Pastor Doug Nicholls, a founding member of the FCAA, which coordinated the fight for political and other civil rights.

18/05/2026

How is the garden of your dreams looking? 🌿

The Garden of Australian Dreams, designed by Richard Weller and Vladimir Sitta in collaboration with ARM Architecture, invites visitors to pause, relax and reflect on an artistic exploration of ‘place’ and ‘home’.

Happy International Museum Day!

By mid-May 1851, the rush to find gold at Ophir had begun. ⛏ Initial searches for the mineral had been spurred on by Gov...
16/05/2026

By mid-May 1851, the rush to find gold at Ophir had begun. ⛏

Initial searches for the mineral had been spurred on by Governor Charles FitzRoy’s offer of a reward for the discovery of commercially viable gold.

Edward Hargraves, who failed to find his fortune in the California gold rush, had been struck by the similarities between the landscape of California and New South Wales.

In 1851 searched for gold with John Lister and the Tom brothers near Bathurst, at a site that he named Ophir, and made a discovery within weeks.

After news was published in the Sydney Morning Herald, hundreds of diggers rushed to try their luck.

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Lawson Crescent, Acton
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2601

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