Kenya’s wonderful National Museum, housed in an imposing building amid lush, leafy grounds just outside the centre, has a good range of cultural and natural history exhibits. Aside from the exhibits, check out the life-sized fibreglass model of pachyderm celebrity Ahmed, the massive elephant who became a symbol of Kenya at the height of the 1980s poaching crisis, and who was placed under 24-hour guard by Jomo Kenyatta; he’s in the inner courtyard next to the shop.
The museum’s permanent collection is entered via the Hall of Kenya , with some ethnological exhibits, but this is a mere prelude. In a room off this hall is the Birds of East Africa exhibit, a huge gallery of at least 900 stuffed specimens. In an adjacent room is the Great Hall of Mammals , with dozens of stuffed mammals. Off the mammals room is the Cradle of Humankind exhibition, the highlight of which is the Hominid Skull Room – an extraordinary collection of skulls that describes itself as ‘the single most important collection of early human fossils in the world’.
Upstairs, the Historia Ya Kenya display is an engaging journey through Kenyan and East African history. It’s well-presented, well-documented and offers a refreshingly Kenyan counterpoint to colonial historiographies. Also on the 1st floor, the Cycles of Life room is rich in ethnological artefacts from Kenya’s various tribes and ethnic groups.
