World Cultures
The Department of World Cultures is the amalgamation of the former departments of West Asian, Far Eastern, Egyptian, Textiles, European, Greek and Roman, Canadiana, New World Archaeology, and Ethnology. Our curators actively conduct research in these areas as art historians, archaeologists and material culture specialists. The diversity of their work is reflected in a wide variety of objects to be found in our collections, ranging from Stone Age implements from China and Africa, the arms and armours from Europe, Middle East and Japan, kayaks and costumes of Canada’s First Peoples, ceramics from ancient Peru, sculptures from Southeast Asia and mummies from Egypt, to 20th-century art and design.
James Menzies Chinese Research Fellowship
The James Menzies Chinese Research Fellowship was established in 2009 to promote scholarly research as it relates to the Royal Ontario Museum’s Chinese collection, with particular emphasis on the ROM’s Menzies collection. The Fellowship is open to Ph.D. candidates, both junior and senior scholars, from Canada and/or China. The research of prospective candidates must make direct use of, or support, the ROM’s Chinese collections, in particular archaeological materials from prehistory to the Bronze-Age.
James Mellon Menzies, a Canadian missionary based in the Henan province from 1923 to 1934, acquired a significant collection of oracle bones, bronzes, pottery and jade while in China. The large majority of objects date from the Shang and Zhou Dynasties (16th - 3rd century BC). In 1960, Arthur Menzies, the son of James Menzies, donated the bulk of his father’s collection of Chinese antiquities to the ROM. In 2009, the late Arthur Menzies made a bequest to the ROM’s East Asian Section to establish this Fellowship endowment as a way of ensuring that the legacy of his father would be available for future generations.
Application (PDF) - James Menzies Chinese Research FellowshipVeronika Gervers: Research Fellowship in Textiles & Costume History
The Research Fellowship is supported by a memorial fund established in 1979 to commemorate the noted ROM curator and textile scholar, Veronika Gervers, to promote scholarly research that incorporates the ROM’s textile and costume collections. The Fellowship is open to Ph.D. candidates and international scholars whose research can make direct use of, or support, any part of the Museum’s collections.
Department of World Cultures
Royal Ontario Museum
100 Queen's Park
Toronto, ON
M5S 2C6
Tel: 416.586.5691
Fax: 416.586.5877
E-mail: worldcultures@rom.on.ca
Inscribed oracle bone. Ox scapula, inscription filled with cinnabar, Shang dynasty, reign of Wuding, 14th-13th century BC, 920.77.1
Robe à la française; sack, (silk), French, Western Europe, circa 1775-1785, 942.9.2.A
Explore images of objects by the collection areas in World Cultures.
World Culture Research Projects
