National Museum of Denmark

Why it is renowned

The National Museum holds finds known far beyond Denmark: the Gundestrup cauldron, the Trundholm Sun Chariot, the Egtved Girl's coffin and the Hjortspring boat.¹ Its Viking exhibition, opened in 2013 by Queen Margrethe II, went on to open the British Museum's new exhibition space in London.²¹ It keeps one of Europe's largest collections of pre-Columbian objects from the Caribbean and runs archaeological research in Greenland and Alaska.¹

The story

The museum counts 22 May 1807 as its founding day, when the Royal Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities was set up.³ In 1816 Christian Jürgensen Thomsen was put in charge of the antiquarian collections that grew into the museum.⁴ Its main building is the Prince's Palace on Ny Vestergade, a short walk from Strøget.¹⁵ The exhibitions follow Danish history from the reindeer hunters of the Ice Age through the Vikings and the Middle Ages to everyday life from 1560 to 2000, and hold antiquities from Greece, Italy, the Near East and Egypt.¹

What to know it by

• Gundestrup cauldron¹Among the notable finds in the collection
• Trundholm Sun Chariot¹Among the notable finds in the collection
• Egtved Girl coffin¹Among the notable finds in the collection
• Golden horns of Gallehus¹Shown as copies; the originals were stolen in 1802