Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv

The project was initiated in September 1900 by the psychology professor Carl Stumpf, after the visit to Germany of a music theater group from Siam, which Stumpf recorded on Edison cylinders with the assistance of the Berlin physician Otto Abraham.

In 1991, following the reunification of East and West Germany, the pre-1944 collections held by the Soviets were returned to the Museum für Völkerkunde.

In 1999, the cylinder recordings of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv were inscribed on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.

The Department for Ethnomusicology continued to collect music, with a focus on traditional music, from all areas of the world, so that by its 100th anniversary it claimed to house an estimated 150,000 recordings[3] An international conference called "100 Years Berlin Phonogramm-Archive: Retrospective, Perspective and Interdisciplinary Approaches of the Sound Archives of the World" was held from September 27 to October 1, 2000, at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.

The Berlin Phonogram Archive is part of the Museum's Media Department under the direction of Dr. Maurice Mengel.