Solomon Islands Museum Opened
p. 91 · Read in the full issue
The British Solomons Islands Protectorate now has a museum.
Financed with $12,000 from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, it opened in early June opposite the Hotel Mendana, one of the three hotels in Honiara, Guadalcanal.
Housing nearly 350 items (mainly artefacts gathered from all parts of the widely scattered protectorate), it includes a piece of basalt from Santa Ysabel reputed to be 60 million years old and a small Japanese “mountain” gun.
Before 1952 all artefacts collected by the government were kept in Honiara’s Germond Library; they were then housed in various govern ment departments.
The museum, in a concrete-walled building with a steeply-pitched thatched roof, was opened by Mr. Solomon Dakei, vice-chairman of the Honiara Town Council.