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.