The Goettingen University acquired in 1773 a private natural history collection from Christian Wilhelm Buettner, one of its professors. This collection became the core of the University’s Academic Museum. In addition to thousands of items of natural history (minerals, plants, zoological items) 66 Art Things were part of Buettner‘s collection. The publication investigates the question, if and how the emergence of scholarly disciplines was stimulated by processes of forming and working with specific collections, taking the development of the Ethnographic collection starting from the 66 Art Things (1773) to the foundation of the Institute and Collection of Völkerkunde (1935/36) and the emergence of Völkerkunde as a university discipline in Göttingen as an example.