Smithsonian to Open Hall Devoted to Africa

After seven years of renovation, the African exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., will return to display Dec. 15, when the African Voices hall opens.

With 400 artifacts (including some never previously displayed), plus photos, films, videos and sound stations, the 6,500-square-foot hall, the museum’s largest, will focus on African history from 5 million years ago to the present. The exhibit covers human origins in Africa, the rule of Nubian pharaohs and later Muslims, the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, the emergence of independent nations and the struggle against South Africa’s apartheid system.

Highlights include a modern, portable Somali house called an aqal, a carved wood door from Zanzibar from early in this century and a re-creation of a contemporary Afro-Brazilian store. The museum, at 10th Street and Constitution Avenue N.W., is free and open 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily. Telephone (202) 357-2700.