The history of the Museum
The present National Museum. From its modest beginnings in Prinsens Palæ, which can be seen in the centre of the picture, the National Museum has become a universal museum, housing collections from all over the world.

The National Museum's collection of prehistoric finds is one of the oldest in Europe. It was established in the year 1807, when King Frederik VI (1768-1839) set up a royal commission for the preservation of antiquities; the collections were housed in the loft of Trinitatis Church, behind the Round Tower. In 1816 a young merchant, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (1788-1865) took over the day-to-day management of the collections. In the years which followed he created not only the Collections from Denmark's prehistory, but also a large proportion of the other collections which make up the National Museum today.

In 1832 the Museum of Antiquities was moved to Christiansborg Palace.Even at that time the collections ranked among the richest in Europe. Many of the treasures which can still be seen today in the Danish prehistoric display, in fact entered the museum in the early 19-th century.

But the scientific system according to which the collections were organised also represented something hitherto quite unknown. Even up to the 1830s most of the European museums still bore the stamp of their origins as princely 'kunstkammers' or collections of curios. Thomsen's museum in Christiansborg, however, was arranged so that it served both lay and learned visitors. It was scientifically ordered but at the same time set out in a didactic way. It became immensely popular among the public and acquired a reputation which reached far beyond Denmark's borders.

When the Danish Constitution was introduced in 1849, the collections passed from the Royal Family to the State. They were moved from Christiansborg to Prinsen's Palæ (the Crown Prince's Palace) and thus found themselves under the same roof as the Antique Cabinet and the Ethnographical Museum - and some years later the Royal Collection of Coins and Medals. These collections were also put in Thomsen's charge and came to bear the stamp of his brilliance. Thus the foundations were laid of the museum which was to develop Into the Danish National Museum.



In 1865 C.J. Thomsen died. His successor was the archaeologist J.J.A. Worsaae (1821-1885), who continued the pioneering work Thomsen had begun. At the same time the museum's position as a scientific institution was also strengthened, and it became responsible for supervising all the ancient monuments in the country. This was carried out by means of e.g. the systematic journeys of inspection around the country which Worsaae initiated in 1873, and which continued far into this century. The intensive cultivation of the land in Denmark and the many construction works which were undertaken in the second half of the 19th century - e.g. the building of the railways - gave rise to many finds and archaeological excavations and caused a significant growth of the museum's collections. In the area of archaeology Denmark developed in those years in to one of the leading nations in Europe. In 1892 the museum was reorganised and given the name National Museum. Those responsible for the collections have since then been researchers, and through activities aimed at popularising the museum's work, they have become well-known to the general public: Suphus Müller (1846-1934), Johannes Brøndsted (1890-1965) and P.V. Glob (1911-1985).

To day the National Museum is no longer the only institution in Denmark which conducts archaeological investigations on a scientific basis. The discipline is now represented at both Copenhagen and Århus Universities, and a large number of local museums all over the country also practise archaeology on a scientific basis. But the National Museum is still the place where all archaeological information about Denmark's prehistory is collected. There is no other country in the world where archaeological finds of all kinds are registered as systematically and as methodically as here. The National Museum is also the place where all finds of Danefæ - i.e. treasure trove - are brought, and where the richest collections from the country's earliest history can be found.