| Summary: | The Mineralogical and Geological Museum established in the former Polytechnic School of Lisbon, amassed since the late nineteenth century, hundreds of geological samples from overseas, sent by its scientific delegates or through agents of the colonial administration. These collections enabled the creation of an important repository for experts and people interested in the subject. In 1936, it opened to the public as the “Room of the Colonial Portuguese Empire”, whose purpose was to disseminate the knowledge over the mineral resources of those territories. The privileged relation between the museum and its collections, and Africa and the Ministry of Colonies (later on Overseas Ministry), maintained by the museum’s scientific staff, positioned the Polytechnic School into as a central actor in the studies of colonial geology. This position was enhanced with new scientific missions in Africa and India during the 1960s. Despite the damage and losses sustained during a fire at the museum in 1978, the remainder of these collections, currently under of recovery and inventory, still retains great interest as a testimony of the geodiversity of those territories, and of the history of Geosciences in Portugal. Revisiting and bringing together samples, archives and several publications, this paper aims to identify motivations and contexts of the colonial collections, listing its most important players.
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