Since first opening its doors to the public on Rolleston Avenue on 1 October 1870, Canterbury Museum has come to house an estimated 2.3 million taonga (treasures).
To celebrate the Museum’s 150th anniversary, 150 taonga (treasures) from this vast collection are showcased in a superbly designed and photographed book House of Treasures: 150 Objects from Canterbury Museum Ngā Taonga Tuku Iho. The featured taonga speak of the depth and breadth of the collection and honour the generations of staff, volunteers and visitors who have made the Museum the remarkable and much-loved place that it is today.
From the smallest to the largest, from the beautiful to the bizarre, from the tragic to the humorous, from local taonga to those created far, far away, the objects in House of Treasures tell an extraordinary story of natural and human history, and of Canterbury Museum itself.