The Ashmolean Museum
Standing at the southern end of St Giles’, the Ashmolean is one of Oxford’s great treasure houses. Behind its imposing classical façade are thousands of years of human history: Egyptian mummies and Greek sculpture, medieval jewels, Renaissance paintings, archaeological discoveries and objects connected with some of the most famous figures in British history.
It is the sort of museum in which it is very easy to walk past something extraordinary.
The collection was largely assembled by the gardeners and travellers John Tradescant and his son, who gathered natural specimens, artworks and unusual objects from across the world. Their home in London became a celebrated cabinet of curiosities, where visitors could encounter things they might otherwise never see in a lifetime.
The collection later passed to Elias Ashmole, an antiquarian, astrologer and founding member of the Royal Society. Ashmole gave it to the University of Oxford, on the condition that a building should be created to preserve and study it.
The original Ashmolean opened on Broad Street in 1683, in the building now occupied by the History of Science Museum. From the beginning, members of the public were admitted—an unusually progressive idea at a time when important collections were generally reserved for monarchs, aristocrats and private scholars.
The Ashmolean’s collections offer a remarkable journey through 600 years of European art, from the carefully constructed perspective of the Renaissance to the colour and experimentation of the modern age. Works such as Paolo Uccello’s enigmatic Hunt in the Forest reveal how Renaissance artists used geometry to create convincing space, while later paintings reflect changing ideas about religion, status, nature and individual identity.
The collection also traces the development of landscape and modern painting through artists such as Turner, Manet and Pissarro, alongside the vivid work of the Pre-Raphaelites and their strong connections with Oxford. Together, these works show how European artists gradually moved away from simply representing the visible world and began exploring more personal ways of seeing it.
The Ashmolean’s ancient Egyptian galleries explore thousands of years of history, from the earliest settlements along the Nile to Egypt’s incorporation into the Roman Empire. Coffins, mummies, funerary objects and everyday possessions reveal how Egyptians understood death, worshipped their gods and organised their daily lives. Particularly fascinating are the objects from Deir el-Medina, the village inhabited by the craftspeople who created the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
The Greek and Roman collections continue the story across the ancient Mediterranean. Painted Greek pottery offers glimpses of mythology, warfare, theatre, sport and domestic life, while Roman sculpture, inscriptions and everyday objects illustrate the growth of a vast and culturally diverse empire. Together, the galleries reveal how Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies influenced one another—and how their ideas about art, religion, politics and identity continue to shape the world today.