Director's Tour of the Ashmolean Museum with Dr Xa Sturgis , Ashmolean Museum

Explore the famed collection of the Museum with the Director Dr Xa Sturgis! The tour will be for up to 10 people. This is an exclusive offer for the winning bidder and has been kindly donated by the Ashmolean Museum.

The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology, founded in 1683. Our world famous collections range from Egyptian mummies to contemporary art, telling human stories across cultures and across time.

The Ashmolean is the University of Oxford’s museum of art and archaeology and is one of four University museums (along with the Museum of the History of Science, the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum). The four museums form part of the University's GLAM (Gardens, Libraries and Museums) group, together with the Bodleian Libraries and Botanic Gardens and Harcourt Arboretum.

The Ashmolean came into existence in 1682, when the wealthy antiquary Elias Ashmole gifted his collection to the University. It opened as Britain’s first public museum, and the world’s first university museum, in 1683.

Though the collection has evolved considerably, the founding principle remains: that knowledge of humanity across cultures and across times is important to society. A laudable intention, but the uncomfortable truth is that much of the collection was inevitably selected and obtained as a result of colonial power.