We propose a visit to a Museum of Madrid very interesting, the Anthropology Museum. It was inaugurated on April 29, 1875 by the king Alfonso XII, with the official name of "Anatomical Museum", the commemorative tablet (in Latin) is still preserved in the lobby.
It would popularly be known as the Anthropological Museum, as it was the title that appeared above the access door.
El National Museum of Anthropology It was the first anthropological museum created in Spain. It has its origin in the initiative of the Segovian doctor Pedro González de Velasco, who wanted to create a museum to house his varied collections, following the model of the British Museum in London. After his death, the State bought the building and collections from his widow in 1887, to which others were later added, the result of expeditions, trips, donations and purchases.
The building was designed and built between 1873 and 1875 by Francisco de Cubas, to serve as both the residence and museum of Dr. Velasco, who invested all his savings in it. It currently has three floors, the ground floor dedicated to physical anthropology, Asia (the Philippines and Eastern religions) and temporary exhibitions, the first to Africa and the second to America.
After its inauguration in 1875 as the Anatomical Museum, the institution underwent some name and ownership changes. After the death of the founder, the building became assigned to the National Museum of Natural Sciences, which installed its Anthropology, Ethnography and Prehistory Section there.
These changes and vicissitudes are common to Anthropology itself, which as a discipline has also been changing its orientation and scope of study.
This section had been created on October 1, 1883 with pieces of this nature that were in the Museum of Natural Sciences, from scientific trips and expeditions at the end of the 1910th century, especially from the Scientific Commission of the Pacific. Unlike what happened at the famous Museum of Natural History in New York, which still keeps the collections together, in XNUMX, it was separated from the Museum of Natural Sciences.
With it, an independent museum was established that retained its name, the National Museum of Anthropology, Ethnography and Prehistory.
After the Civil War there were also intellectual and scientific changes that had their consequences on the National Museum of Anthropology, which was renamed the National Museum of Ethnology in 1940. The name change manifested a variation in the orientation of the museum. In its origins, the study of man in his physical appearance took precedence, physical anthropology, from that moment on it began to focus on social and cultural anthropology, on collections of ethnographic objects.
In addition, it disposed of its archeology and prehistory collections, which were transferred to the National Archaeological Museum. That name remained until 1993, when it recovered the old name of the National Museum of Anthropology, which merged under that name the National Museum of Ethnology and the National Museum of the Spanish People. Both institutions continued to operate independently with two different headquarters, the second in the building of the former Spanish Museum of Contemporary Art, in the University City. This situation continued until 2004 when the Museum of Costume. Ethnological Heritage Research Center (CIPE), to which the collections of the Museum of the Spanish People were assigned and the two institutions were thus separated, creating two independent museums.
Without a doubt, it is an exciting visit that in a short space and time allows us to visualize the diversity of the world and the great cultural differences that are manifested as a result of our adaptation to different media and our cultural heritage. Without a doubt, the Museum is a hymn to interculturality, (far from the old ethnocentric view) with very interesting small temporary exhibitions and a great effort to open the museum and its accumulated knowledge to the general public, far from the era of a cabinet of curiosities. where he was born (by the way, many of them still remain, but it would be better if you discovered them yourself during your visit).

As the museum itself says “The museum of people like us”
One more curiosity about the museum is that for many years it was the location where another great doctor, Santiago Ramon y Cajal He carried out his research work, as a commemorative plaque reminds us.

A abrazo.