Museum Night @ Iziko SA Museum | Join us for Free Talks on World Heritage Sites in South Africa

About Museum Night Cape Town

Museum Night is a multi-institution after hours cultural experience. For one night, the public is invited to explore their city’s museums and cultural institutions after-hours and free of charge.

The next edition of Museum Night Cape Town takes place on Thursday 21 February 2019. Our theme is Proud of Our Roots.

In South Africa, we have diverse cultures and we celebrate this in various ways through traditional dance, music, songs and our food. It is very important to keep it alive for our future generations. Our ‘sense of place’ and where we come from may widely affect our identity. We are privileged to celebrate South Africa’s rich heritage, not only cultural heritage, but our natural heritage in the form of fossils, and the diversity of flora and fauna on both land and aquatic habitats.

The Iziko South African Museum is proud to be part of Museum Night Cape Town and will be hosting amazing talks on some of our World Heritage Sites in South Africa and a free workshop on the hunter-gatherer food culture of the first humans on Earth.

Museum Night is an initiative of Thursdays Projects, with Iziko Museums of South Africa as a founding partner. 

About the Talks and Speakers

Celebrate 80 years of the living Coelacanth - Prof Mike Bruton 

In celebration of the 80th anniversary of the discovery of a live Coelacanth off the coast of East London, South Africa, Professor Mike Bruton from Imagineering will be performing as JLB Smith - the Professor who famously described the first living Coelacanth - and talking visitors to the Iziko South African Museum through the significance of this remarkable discovery.

Located at the Coelacanth display at the Iziko South African Museum, Bruton will enliven his performance with a number of small props and interesting facts about the conservation of marine animals, and those who, like the Coelacanth, have been saved from extinction. Bruton will also relive the discovery of the Coelacanth off East London’s coast on the 22nd December 1938 – actively remembering this momentous event in the history of biology.

The performance will take place Thursday, 21 February 2019 and will run from 18h00-22h00. No bookings required.

Prof Mike Bruton was born and educated in East London, where he first met the coelacanth in the East London Museum at the age of 10. He studied ichthyology (fishes) under JLB and Margaret Smith at Rhodes University and subsequently took over from Margaret Smith as the Director of the JLB Smith Institute of Ichthyology (now the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, SAIAB). He has organised several expeditions to study the coelacanth in South Africa, Mozambique and the Comoros, and has published extensively on 'old fourlegs'. He has also given many talks on South Africa's most famous fish around the world.

South Africa is home to eight of the world's official heritage sites, as determined by Unesco's World Heritage Committee. Heritage incorporates the natural treasures and the cultural gems, complementing the historical factor to create a place that is deeply significant, with a character of its own. With South Africa’s complex cultures, deep history and undeniably spectacular natural landscapes, it is no wonder that this country boasts so many of these special sites and attractions. How many do you know?

Iziko South African Museum is proud to be hosting free talks from our local research experts on some of our magnificent World Heritage Sites (WHS).

Nature and culture at Robben Island: a marriage made in heaven - Dr Moleboheng Mohapi (Robben Island Museum)

Dr Moleboheng Mohapi started her career as a History and English teacher. While Mohapi’s earlier career focus was of an academic nature, her career gravitated towards heritage management in the last six years. Prior to joining Robben Island Museum, Mohapi worked at Royal Bafokeng Administration (RBA) where she established RBA’s first Arts and Culture Department. She was previously Head of the Department of Historical Studies at National University of Lesotho, where she introduced the first archaeology courses. She was also a post-doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Anthropological Research at University of Johannesburg. She currently occupies the position of Senior Manager: Heritage and Research at Robben Island Museum. She trained as an archaeologist, specializing in Middle Stone Age (MSA) stone tool and hunting technology.

Uniqueness of the Cape Floral Region and the effects of fires in our rare floral heritage - Dr Anina Coetzee (University of Cape Town)

Dr Anina Coetzee studied at Stellenbosch University, where she was introduced to the fascinating fynbos. She combines her interests in bird and plant ecology through her research on bird-pollination. She is currently based at the University of Cape Town as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her research investigates the interdependence between sunbirds and flowers.

The impact that shook the world – traces of cosmic catastrophe in the Vredefort Dome - Prof Roger Gibson (University of Witwatersrand)

Prof Roger Gibson is Head of the School of Geosciences at Wits University. He has spent 25 years studying the rocks of the Vredefort Dome, which retain signs of the largest known meteorite impact on Earth, as well as other impact structures in southern, North and West Africa, and North and South America. Apart from having written more than 30 papers on the subject, he is the author of 2 scientific guides and a popular book on the Vredefort Dome. He is currently involved in describing two recent southern African meteorite falls.

How to date a Caveman – Discoveries made at the Cradle of Humankind - Dr Robyn Pickering (University of Cape Town)

Dr Robyn Pickering is an isotope geochemist with leanings towards palaeoanthropology and archaeology. Her research seeks to understand where and most importantly when our early human ancestors evolved and what their environments were like. She has spent the last decade developing the U-series technique to date carbonates associated with early human fossils. Robyn grew up in Johannesburg; a love of the great outdoors and reading Richard Leakey’s books lead her to an undergraduate degree in Geology and Archaeology at Wits. Robyn did her PhD at the University of Bern in Switzerland and then spent six years at the University of Melbourne in Australia as a post doc, working on uranium-lead dating hominin cave sites, particularly those from the Cradle of Humankind. Robyn is currently pushing the U-series method to be applicable to dating pedogenic and lacustrine carbonates. Part of her job at the University of Cape Town is to set up the country’s first U-series dating laboratory.

The talks will be held on Thursday, 21 February 2019 and between 18h00-21h00. Bookings required as space in the auditorium is limited. If school groups are interested in a block booking, please email the organiser.