Moesgaard Museum

Why it is renowned

Moesgaard holds the Grauballe Man, an Iron Age man found in a Jutland bog in 1952 and one of the best-preserved bog bodies ever discovered.¹² He is among the most studied human remains from prehistoric Europe, and Seamus Heaney named a poem after him in his 1975 collection North.¹ The museum's ethnographic collections hold almost 50,000 objects from around the world.³ Lonely Planet, in its list of the best places to visit in Denmark, calls Moesgaard an outstanding ethnographic museum and names the Grauballe Man as what it is famous for.⁴

The story

The museum sits on the Moesgaard estate, 100 hectares of park, forest, fields and shore running down to Aarhus Bay, and works with the archaeology and anthropology institutes of Aarhus University.³ Its exhibition building by Henning Larsen Architects opened in 2014; its staggered levels, modelled on an archaeological dig, lead down a broad stair into Denmark's prehistory, and its roof is open to everyone.⁵³ The permanent galleries run from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages and include thousands of weapons offered in the Iron Age bog at Illerup Ådal and the runestones of the region.³ Outside stand a reconstructed Viking Age stave church and an Iron Age farmhouse, and a four-kilometre prehistoric track runs through the estate to the sea.³

What to know it by

• Grauballe Man²1952Iron Age bog body, found in Nebelgaard Bog near Grauballe
• Illerup Ådal finds³Iron Age weapon offerings from a Jutland bog
• The museum building⁵2014Henning Larsen ArchitectsStaggered levels under a roof open to visitors
• Hørning Stave Church³Reconstruction of a Viking Age wooden church