National Museums Scotland

National Museums Scotland is the organization that runs several national museums of Scotland. It is one of the country's National Collections, and holds internationally important collections of natural sciences, decorative arts, world cultures, science and technology, and Scottish history and archaeology.

List of national museums

• The National Museum of Scotland, comprising two linked museums on Chambers Street, in the Old Town of Edinburgh:
  • The Museum of Scotland - concerned with the history and people of Scotland
  • The Royal Museum - a general museum encompassing global geology, archaeology, natural history, science, technology and art
• The National Museum of Costume, at Shambellie House, New Abbey, Dumfries and Galloway
• The National Museum of Flight, at East Fortune, East Lothian
• The National Museum of Rural Life, at Wester Kittochside farm, in South Lanarkshire (previously the Museum of Scottish Country Life, previously the Scottish Agricultural Museum)
• The National War Museum, at Edinburgh Castle

Other collections

The main storage building at the National Museums Collection Centre, at Granton in Edinburgh, opened in 1996. It is not currently open to the public because a new reception and conservation building is under construction. A new storage building is planned to house the textile and costume collections in one location. This will include the recently acquired Jean Muir Collection of 20th century costume and accessories.

The Museum of Piping is located in the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, and displays the piping collections of National Museums Scotland.

Trustees

National Museums Scotland is Scotland's national museum service, governed by a board of trustees. It is a non-departmental public body, funded by the Education and Lifelong Learning Directorate of the Scottish Government.

It cares for many of Scotland's museum collections of national and international importance (listed above), and provides advice and expertise to other museums across the country.

Notable items in the national collections

Hearth(?) by Andy Goldsworthy

The official website lists the following exhibits as being the highlights of its collections:

• Dolly the sheep
• Concorde G-BOAA (Alpha Alpha)
• Tea Service of the Emperor Napoleon
• Assyrian relief of King Ashurnasirpal II and a court official, from the North-West Palace of Ashurnasirpal at Nimrud, excavated by Austen Henry Layard in the 1840s; the medical pioneer James Young Simpson gave the panel to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, who passed it into the national collection
• Seringapatam sword, presented to David Baird by his field officers after the Battle of Seringapatam, in May 1799
• Silver travelling canteen of Prince Charles Edward Stuart
• Boulton & Watt engine
• Bute mazer (also referred to as the Bannatyne mazer)
• Calcite crystal, found in 1927 at the New Glencrieff mine at Wanlockhead on the Leadhills ore field, "an excellent example of a complex doubly terminated scalenohedral crystal" (see Dogtooth spar)
• Hunterston brooch
• Lewis chessmen
• Monymusk reliquary
• Queen Mary harp
• Qurneh burial collection, discovered by Flinders Petrie on 30 December 1908, the only complete ancient royal Egyptian burial collection held outside Egypt

See also

• Museums in Scotland
• Scottish Publishers Association
• Scottish Sports Hall of Fame

External links

• National Museums Scotland
• The National Piping Centre