Museums & History

Sixty thousand years, then two hundred and forty

The land this city stands on is Gadigal country, part of the wider Eora nation, and it has been occupied continuously for something over sixty thousand years — among the longest continuous human occupations anywhere on earth. The rock engravings in the sandstone around the harbour are older than almost anything in Europe and are still there.

The British arrived in January 1788 with a fleet of convict transports, and everything a visitor recognises as Sydney is younger than that. Holding both of those in view at once is what the good museums here are for.

⭐ The state collections are free

• Art Gallery of New South Wales — free general entry to both buildings, and the Yiribana Gallery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art is the reason to start there rather than finish.
• The Australian Museum — natural history and First Nations collections, on the edge of Hyde Park. ⚠️ General admission has been free since 2020; special exhibitions are ticketed.
• The Australian National Maritime Museum, at Darling Harbour — part free, part ticketed, and the ticketed part is the vessels you can go aboard.

The convict city

Hyde Park Barracks is ticketed, is UNESCO-listed, and is the one that stays with people. Since 2020 there are no labels on the walls at all: the whole interpretation is audio, built from the words of the men held there, triggered as you walk. ⚠️ It is upsetting in places and is not a museum for small children.

The Rocks is the other half of the same story, outdoors and free — the Argyle Cut was driven through solid sandstone by convicts with hand tools.

Reading these places

⭐ Australian museums have spent twenty years rewriting how they describe the colonial period, and they are visibly still doing it. That is more interesting than a settled account, not less — the useful question in any room here is who is speaking, and when was this label written?