[14] The forecourt incorporates a replica of a pre-invasion Aboriginal petroglyph of two wallabies originally located in Westleigh and the foyer prominently displays a Welcome to Country in the Sydney language.

[15] In addition, the Macleay Collections holds material reflecting the museum's history, including a significant library, furniture, documents and ephemera relating to the major collectors.

[16] Spanning from the pre-Neolithic to the late medieval period, these artefacts hold intimate stories of people’s everyday lives, ancient environments, and cultural activity for over more than 10,000 years.

[16] Over the past 160 years, the Nicholson Collection has expanded through ambitious acquisition programs, generous donation and private bequests.

International excavations in Egypt, Cyprus and the Middle East, partly sponsored by the University of Sydney have also contributed significant objects to the collection.

[5][71] In 2022 the curators of the Nicholson Collection and our research partners from the Egypt's Dispersed Heritage Project, Heba Abd Al-Gawad and Alice Stevenson, invited members of the Egyptian-Australian community to a weekend long focus group to discuss the ways in which Egyptian heritage is interpreted and ways forward for participation.

The aim of the project is to re-assemble and re-connect this material by 'excavating' its private and official components, focusing on the makers and traders to disentangle the social relationships embedded in the objects.

[74] This research project seeks to understand better different public attitudes and responses to the display of human remains with a particular focus on museum visitors and Egyptian communities in Australia’s diaspora, in Egypt, and elsewhere.

[77] Ongoing excavations at the ancient theatre and surrounding environs of Nea Paphos that was the capital of Cyprus under the Ptolemaic and then Roman administrations.

[81][82][83] In July 2017, the museum launched a crowdsourcing project to help identify and catalogue the Woodhouse Photographic Archive of glass-plate negatives taken in Greece during the 1890s and early 1900s.