Bonn Collection of the Americas
The BASA Museum (Bonn Collection of the Americas) is the lively centre of the Department for the Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn. It is a space for exhibitions, communication, lectures, teaching and working used by students, teachers and researchers.
Since its foundation as archaeological-ethnographic teaching and study collection in 1948 by Hermann Trimborn, it has been the cornerstone of anthropological teaching and research in Bonn.
The BASA Museum holds more than 10,000 objects of pre-Columbian and contemporary indigenous societies of the Americas. Other world regions are also represented, albeit to a lesser extent. The main pillars of the collection are ethnographic collections of the 20th century from the South American lowlands (especially Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador) and the Andean highlands, as well as archaeological objects from the Andean region and Mesoamerica, especially from the Mayan regions.
The collections at the BASA Museum, which are unique among university museums in Germany, are the subject of seminars and biannual practical courses, of seminar papers and dissertations by students, as well as of ongoing research projects.
