Natural History Museum, Perpignan
In 1770 the University of Perpignan set up a natural history cabinet, for teaching purposes. The collections were partly preserved and in 1840 became the Municipal Museum
The collection was poorly maintained until the arrival of a young doctor called Emmanuel Bonafos, who was appointed professor of natural history at the Ecole Centrale and was also made director of the botanical garden.
Bonafos divided the collections into three sections: geology, zoology and herbaceous plants, which remained in the natural history cabinet of the Ecole Centrale, still housed in the building of the old university.
The fall of Robespierre in 1794, and the end of the ‘Terror’ led to the establishment of a number of museums all around the country, mainly in provincial towns such as Grenoble, Tours, Nancy, Auxerre and Nantes.
From 19th century, the Perpignan collections increased considerably with more birds and insects, molluscs. Today, you can find rare or extinct animals of the P-O, many bird species, great mammals, oceanian and african ethnological objects, as well as an egyptian mummy from the XXIII dynasty still in its sarcophagus, offered by Ibrahim Pacha in 1847 after a thermal treatment in Vernet-les-Bains.
| 12 rue Fontaine-Neuve 66000 – Perpignan Tel : 04 68 66 33 68 / 04 68 66 36 90 MORE INFO |
