The Phansi Museum: Museum – Arts - Culture - Entertainment

Welcome to Phansi Museum

The Phansi Museum is a cultural beacon in Durban, South Africa, occupying three floors of one of the few domestic national historic monuments in the city. It today houses some of the finest collections of African artefacts such as: Beadwork, earplugs, milk pails, snuff containers, beer pots, headrests, tobacco pipes, telephone wire baskets, ceremonial and medicinal items dating from the present back to the mid19th century. Displays include spectacular life-size puppet rooms and sangoma figures. The museum shop sells contemporary and traditional South African arts and crafts. Opening hours: 8am-4pm Mon-Fri, weekends by appointment. Entrance fee (includes a museum tour +- 45 minutes long): Adults: R35 Students: R22 Children under 16: R28 (not recommended for children under 12 years) The Phansi Museum is governed by the Phansi Museum Trust, a registered Non-Profit Organisation. NPO No: 060/966 Trust Reg No: IT876/07/PMB Audited by Victor Fernandez & Co (pty)ltd Trustees: P.E.Myeni, H.D.Mikula, N.E.Zondi

Welcome to Phansi Museum

The Phansi Museum is a cultural beacon in Durban, South Africa, occupying three floors of one of the few domestic national historic monuments in the city. It today houses some of the finest collections of African artefacts such as: Beadwork, earplugs, milk pails, snuff containers, beer pots, headrests, tobacco pipes, telephone wire baskets, ceremonial and medicinal items dating from the present back to the mid19th century. Displays include spectacular life-size puppet rooms and sangoma figures. The museum shop sells contemporary and traditional South African arts and crafts. Opening hours: 8am-4pm Mon-Fri, weekends by appointment. Entrance fee (includes a museum tour +- 45 minutes long): Adults: R35 Students: R22 Children under 16: R28 (not recommended for children under 12 years) The Phansi Museum is governed by the Phansi Museum Trust, a registered Non-Profit Organisation. NPO No: 060/966 Trust Reg No: IT876/07/PMB Audited by Victor Fernandez & Co (pty)ltd Trustees: P.E.Myeni, H.D.Mikula, N.E.Zondi

The museum was started in 2000 as a small private museum, and has since expanded to host one of the biggest and most spectacular collections of African arts and crafts in the world. The collection is held in Roberts House, a fully restored Victorian National Monument, in Glenwood, Durban, South Africa. Three floors of the Victorian mansion are packed with Zulu beadwork, earplugs, wire baskets, milk-pails, beer-pots and fertility dolls; Ndebele blankets and ceremonial items, and artefacts from the eastern Cape, Namibia and Kenya.

The most popular exhibit is the life-size marionette room, where thirty life-size puppets are adorned with ceremonial dress from all over Southern Africa. This collection was exhibited at ABC Home, in Manhattan, New York, over the festive season 2008/2009, to great acclaim. Museum hostess and tour-guide, Phumzile Nkosi, is a real treasure. Descended from Swazi Royalty, she is the ‘human face’ of the museum, and is extremely popular with visitors. Tours can last between 20 minutes to an hour, depending on the time-constraints of the visitor.

Housed in a fully restored Victorian National Monument

The museum hosts cultural workshops and functions. Regular live music evenings provide a platform for local and visiting artists to showcase original material. The publishing division, Phansi Publishing, publishes short runs of specialist-interest arts, crafts and cultural literature. It has for the last 10 years produced an annual calendar which has become an iconic collecters item, adorning the walls of rural schools and boardrooms alike.

The museum has a partnership with the Amazwi Abesifazane (Voices of Women) memory cloth project, and houses an archive of over 2000 memory cloths, exhibiting groups of these on a rotating basis. The BAT Shop has recently relocated from the BAT Centre to the museum and sells funky original contemporay local crafts. The museum coffee shop Ikhishi serves fabulous light meals and great coffee.

Art Craft Tradition

The Phansi Museum is a registered Non-Profit Organisation. We rely solely on funding and donations to survive. If you would like to contribute to the preservation of traditional South African culture, you can make a donation online. Any amount, no matter what size,will help us survive. To make a donation, please see below. This will allow you to make a secure payment via Givengain, an international Non-Profit Organisation which enables organisations like us to receive donations online with no administration costs.

Alternatively donations can be made straight to the Phansi Museum Bank Account.

Phansi Museum Trust Nedbank

Account No: 1648167810

Branch Code: 164 826

We receive 100% of donations deposited into our bank account.