The Pan African Heritage Museum currently under construction in Accra, Ghana, will officially open in December 2024, but the public can get a taste of what to expect by visiting the virtual version which was launched on African World Heritage Day on 5 May 2022. It costs an equivalent of $10.
The museum, the first dedicated to the origins and civilizations of Africa, will showcase the history, arts, culture, sciences, religions and technologies of ancient Africa from the earliest ancient civilizations to the introduction of contemporary Pan Africa. The vision is to become the permanent place of pilgrimage for Africans and people of African descent for education, healing and inspiration.
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It will be a one stop shop to unlearn and relearn real African history curated by Africans for posterity. Construction of the $50 million complex designed by Nigerian architect James Inedu-George began this February on a 10-hectare plot, in Pomadze Hills, near Winneba Junction on Accra’s Cape Coast Road.
The main building has the shape of a horn, which has a special significance in the ancient traditions and culture of Africa. The trumpet is culturally associated with great strength and humility and was blown to announce the arrival of something or someone great.
The complex will consist of a five-story, one-hectare museum; a three-acre grassy village with houses, a conference hall, a grocery store and restaurant; the two-acre Palace of African Kingdoms, a food court for African cuisines; the one-hectare Pan African Heroes and Heroines Park; Pan African Library; a children’s library and innovation center, a convention center and a Hall of Fame center.
The founder and chairman of the Pan African Heritage Museum, Prof Kojo Yankah, told The EastAfrican in a virtual interview that: “The message is loud and clear that they have no business holding onto stolen objects that do not belong to them. I think that It is only a matter of time. They used to say that Africans have no space to hold them. Now we are creating spaces to hold them all. They belong to us and we don’t need any excuse from anyone to ‘required.”
The Pan African Heritage Museum Foundation, which is building the museum, is an international, non-profit, non-political, non-governmental organization registered in Ghana with branches worldwide.
“We have national chapters in USA, Canada, UK, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Brazil and Bahia. There are chapters in 23 African countries. So we have 31 at the moment,” said Prof. Yankah.
The museum expects to hold and display around 250,000 pieces or artefacts from Africa and “the diaspora will all be represented by art, culture, history, cuisine, fashion and the world of herbal plants”.
