Qualla: National Museum of Tanzania

National Museum of Tanzania: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit O.Mustafin, CC0. The skull is two million years old. A specimen of Paranthropus boisei, it was found by Mary and Louis Leakey at Olduvai Gorge and now sits in a glass case in the National Museum of Dar es Salaam, on Shaaban Robert Street, next to the botanical gardens. Visitors walk past it on their way to exhibits on the Shirazi city-state of Kilwa, Chinese pottery traded across the Indian Ocean centuries ago, and automobiles that once belonged to King George V. The juxtaposition is deliberate, if sprawling -- this museum, and the six others in its consortium, are trying to tell the entire story of a place where human history arguably began.

Image: O.Mustafin | CC0

National Museum of Tanzania: A King's Memorial Becomes a Nation's Museum

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit O.Mustafin, CC0. The main museum in Dar es Salaam was established in 1934 under Tanganyika governor Harold MacMichael, originally as a memorial to King George V. It opened to the public in 1940. In 1963, a second building was added, and the institution pivoted from royal tribute to national repos...

Image: O.Mustafin | CC0

National Museum of Tanzania: Seven Museums, One Consortium

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit O.Mustafin, CC0. The National Museum of Tanzania is not a single building but a network. Established as a corporate body under the National Museum Act of 1980, the consortium now encompasses seven institutions scattered across the country. In Arusha, the National Natural History Museum on Boma Ro...

Image: O.Mustafin | CC0

National Museum of Tanzania: The Mass Grave at Songea

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit User:Digr, CC BY-SA 3.0. The most sobering member of the consortium is the Majimaji Memorial Museum in Songea. It stands on the site where, on 27 February 1906, German colonial forces hanged 67 Africans and buried them in a mass grave. The executions were part of the suppression of the Maji Maji War, a r...

Image: User:Digr | CC BY-SA 3.0

National Museum of Tanzania: Ninety Buildings, Two Million Years

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit O.Mustafin, CC0. According to the consortium's own accounting, 90 historical buildings and monuments are under its care. These range from the colonial Ocean Road Hospital in Dar es Salaam and the first German administrative building -- the Boma -- in Bagamoyo, to the Tendaguru paleontological sit...

Image: O.Mustafin | CC0