National Museum of Denmark

Exhibitions

The museum covers 14,000 years of Danish history, from the reindeer-hunters of the Ice Age, Vikings, and works of religious art from the Middle Ages, when the church was highly significant in Danish life. Danish coins from Viking times to the present and coins from ancient Rome and Greece, as well as examples of the coinage and currencies of other cultures, are exhibited also. The National Museum keeps Denmark's largest and most varied collection of objects from the ancient cultures of Greece and Italy, the Near East and Egypt. For example, it holds a collection of objects that were retrieved during the Danish excavation of Tell Shemshara in Iraq in 1957.

Exhibits are also shown on who the Danish people are and were, stories of everyday life and special occasions, stories of the Danish state and nation, but most of all stories of different people's lives in Denmark from 1560 to 2000.

The Danish pre-history section was re-opened in May 2008 after years of renovating.

In 2013, a major exhibition on the Vikings was opened by Margrethe II of Denmark. It has toured to other museums, including the British Museum in London.

Restitution

In 2024, the museum repatriated a 17th-century sacred feathered cloak that was taken to Denmark in 1689 from the Tupinambá people of Brazil, where it was placed in the custodianship of the National Museum in Rio de Janeiro.

Notable artifacts

• Golden horns of Gallehus (only copies are on display since the originals were stolen and melted down in 1802)
• Gundestrup cauldron
• Hjortspring boat
• Egtved Girl coffin
• Kingittorsuaq Runestone
• Snoldelev Stone
• Trundholm Sun Chariot
• Seikilos epitaph
• Holmegaard bow
• Tjele helmet fragment

Directors

• Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1825–1865)
• Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1856–1874)
• Sophus Müller (1895–1921)
• Olaf Olsen (1981–1995)
• Steen Hvass (1996–2001)
• Carsten U. Larsen (2002–2008)
• Per Kristian Madsen (2008–2017)
• Rane Willerslev (2017–present)

Gallery

Image:Guldhornene DO-10765 original.jpg|Copies of the two golden horns of Gallehus from around the 4th century Image:Bronze Age Helmets, Nationalmuseet Copenhagen.jpg|The Veksø helmets - Bronze Age horned helmets from Brøns Mose at Veksø on Zealand, Denmark Image:Gundestrup cauldron - F.I.4277.jpg|Gundestrupkarret (the Gundestrup cauldron), dating from the 1st century BC File:Solvognen-00100.jpg|The Trundholm Sun Chariot, an important late Nordic Bronze Age artifact Image:Nivisarsiaq (Mathias Blumenthal).jpg|Nivisarsiaq, a painting of a Greenlandic girl who came to Denmark in the mid 18th century Image:Egtvedpigen.jpg|The Egtved Girl coffin from the late Nordic Bronze Age

Image:Aurochs, Danish National Museum.jpg|Exhibit of an aurochs skeleton Image:Danish Pride, National Museum of Denmark.jpg|Exhibit from the Danish 20th century section Image:Maori Face mask, National Museum of Denmark.jpg|Exhibit from New Zealand. Showcasing sections of global history and traditions Image:Huldremose_Woman.jpg|The Huldremose Woman from 160 BCE - 340 CE found in a peat bog near Ramten, Jutland, Denmark Image:Golden altar of Lisbjerg Church.jpg|The golden altar of Lisbjerg Church built Image:Dejbjerg wagon, Nationalmuseet Copenhagen.jpg|The Dejbjerg wagon from the Pre-Roman Iron Age, thought to be a ceremonial wagon.

Publications (selected)

Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark is the title of the museum's yearbook which has been published since 1928 and contains articles and other contributions. ISSN 0084-9308

• Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark 1807 - 2007. København: Nationalmuseet, 2007

References

References

1. "Nationalmuseets historie / Oldsagskommissionen".
2. "Nationalmuseets besøsgtal".
3. "About SILA".
4. Mortensen, Peder. (1970). "Tell Shimshara. The Hassuna period". Kongelige Danske videnskabernes selskab.
5. Kennedy, Maev. (19 June 2013). "Biggest Viking exhibition in 20 years opens – and this time they're angry". The Guardian.
6. Rogero, Tiago. (12 September 2024). "‘A beacon of hope’: Indigenous people reunited with sacred cloak in Brazil". The Guardian.
7. [http://jelling.natmus.dk/om-jelling/litteratur-om-jelling/nationalmuseets-arbejdsmark/ Om Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark] {{Webarchive. link. (2015-03-29 ; jelling.natmus.dk)