34 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1962 



halls in the Catalan numismatic museum in Barcelona, will give Spain 

 a leading position in this field so far as sheer exhibit area is concerned. 

 Donald E. Kloster, museum aide in the division of military history, 

 visited several military museums in Oslo, Norway, and Copenhagen, 

 Denmark, during July and August. He studied the display tech- 

 niques, conservation measures and experiments, storage systems, and 

 reference collections of each museum and obtained considerable in- 

 formation on experiments and practices in preservation, especially in 

 the fields of leather, metal, and silk. 



EXHIBITIONS 



On June 28, 1962, the modernized hall of the cultures of the Pacific 

 and Asia was formally opened in the presence of ambassadors and 

 other official representatives of several Pacific and Southeast Asian 

 countries. In this hall 50 special exhibit units depict aspects of past 

 and present life in the Pacific Islands, Australia, New Zealand, and 

 the great arc of southern Asia from the Philippines to Pakistan. The 

 cultures represented range from the Stone Age to the highly ad- 

 vanced cultures of India, Pakistan, Malaya, and Indonesia. The 

 peoples of Hawaii and New Zealand are portrayed as they existed 

 when discovered by Europeans over a century ago. Included among 

 the exhibits are a large stone head from Easter Island, a Gi^-f oot piece 

 of stone money from Yap, royal feather capes from Hawaii, and recent 

 gifts of material culture from India and Malaya. Life groups de- 

 picting living conditions of New Guinea pygmies, an Ifugao rice 

 harvest in the Philippines, and domestic scenes among the Maori of 

 New Zealand and the Samoans are installed in the hall. 



Construction in the adjacent hall, which will contain additional 

 Asian exhibits and also interpret the cultures of Africa, was nearing 

 completion at the year's end. 



At the close of the year two-thirds of the exhibits in the second of 

 two halls of North American archeology had been designed and in- 

 stallation was proceeding in anticipation of a fall opening. This hall 

 will display exhibits which will interpret archeological methods and 

 objectives and the prehistoric cultures of the United States east of the 

 Rocky Mountains. 



Staff members of the department of anthropology collaborated with 

 the division of cultural history in the selection of musical instruments 

 from the Congo, Polynesia, China, and Thailand for an exhibit assem- 

 bled for the Eighth Congress of the International Musicological So- 

 ciety which met in Washington. A selection of weapons and armor 

 from the John Oliver La Gorce collection was displayed from Novem- 

 ber 1961 to March 1962. In December 1961 and January 1962 the 

 division of ethnology offered a special exhibition, of 80 newly cleaned 



