The Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology has returned to its original home on Main Street with the completion of a $20M restoration project and it is now open to the public.

This coincides with a government initiative to draft legislation to protect archaeological findings and historical records.

Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Gail Teixeira made the announcement at a function held on the lawns of the museum at 61 Main Street on Thursday afternoon.

She added that the works on pre-historic Guyana by former Director of the museum, the late Dr Dennis Williams, would go into print at the end of the month. She described the work as the first definitive synthesis of pre-historic Guyana.

Noting the history of the museum and the work done by Walter Roth, an Englishman who worked among the aborigines of Australia and in Guyana, she said that linkages between the local museum and the Queensland Museum of Australia had been established.

Teixeira said that many people felt that museums were places to store records without placing importance on their being cultural institutions which contributed to science and arts while improving relations between countries.

She noted that the museum, though it had been largely closed to the public since 1996 due to the deterioration of the main building, had conducted a number of innovative outreach programmes with the help of UNESCO.

The museum also held the first `Parishara’ dance in the Rupununi in 20 years as part of its research traditions. The `Parishara’ straddles the cultures of both the Wapishana and the Macushi with differences in the interpretation of dances.

Teixeira noted that over the last two years, work was afoot to develop archaeological policies and guidelines and the drafting of legislation to protect the country’s historical records. This is being done in conjunction with the stakeholders including the police and the Environmental Protection Agency in a bid to protect the country’s cultural artifacts.

A scientific committee, which in the past had all non-Guyanese members, will be reinstalled with Guyanese linguist, Dr Desrey Fox invited to sit on the committee. Teixeira added that she had invited her colleague Minister of Amerindian Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues to relocate the Amerindian craft shop to a better spot to be provided by the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport.

The museum was founded in 1974 from the collection of the first director, Dr Williams. It was first housed at the Department of Culture and was the first museum of anthropology in the English- speaking Caribbean.

Although the original site was supposed to be at Bartica, plans were changed as there was a fuel crisis in 1974. This caused funds allocated for the museum to be withdrawn.

In 1980 the museum was relocated to the current site and the collections of Roth, John J Quelch, and Sir Everard Im Thurm were transferred from the Guyana National Museum. Dr Williams’ collection was transferred from the Department of Culture. In 1991, Dr George Mentore, a Guyanese cultural anthropologist donated an ethnographic collection of the Wai Wais of southern Guyana. Other artifacts including items from the ten administrative regions of Guyana were later collected and brought to the museum.

It is believed that John Sharples (1845-1913) was the architect of the building, which was built before 1890. A Guyanese barrister, Duncan McRae Hutson bought the building in 1891 and when his wife died in 1942 he sold it to the government of then British Guiana.

Roth, a noted anthropologist and surgeon was born in England, worked in Australia and came to Guyana in 1905 where he worked and lived till he died in 1933.