Celebrating our heritage

Wits90 Treasures Exhibition

Wits is the custodian of some of the world’s most priceless treasures and on the occasion of its 90th anniversary, Wits invited Joburgers to share these riches. The exhibition entitled Wits90 Treasures was diverse – ranging from the rare and peculiar to the uncanny and extraordinary...

Visitors saw the following on display, amongst other treasures: the Taung Skull; the Sediba Fossils; the world’s oldest dinosaur eggs; rare African art; Dumile Feni scrolls; one of the world’s oldest Bibles; Mandela’s handwritten notes from the Rivonia Trial; Robert Sobukwe’s original letters; Herbert Baker watercolours, photographs from the Barnett collection; excerpts from the Sol Plaatje collection; the Devil’s Claw; old blueprints of the Union Buildings and the Johannesburg Art Gallery; rock art; a slave register and clay tablets (ca 3000 – 2000 BC).

Embryo models; animal skeletons; human death masks; iron lungs used in South Africa during the 1950s poliomyelitis epidemic; some 17th Century musical instruments and a medicine chest were also on display. This varied, multidisciplinary exhibition served to bring together treasures that had never been put together in one space before.  Read more about this exhibition in this supplement, Wits90 Treasures exhibition.

The Wits campus has a wealth of sightseeing and educational opportunities which collectively depict the richness of our history, academic endeavours, diversity of disciplines and social interaction.