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National Museum of Denmark

museum, Copenhagen, Denmark
Also known as: Danmarks Nationalmuseum

Quick Summary

The National Museum of Denmark, located in Copenhagen, is a prominent cultural institution with a rich history. It was formed in 1892 through the merger of four existing museums: ethnography, antiquities, numismatics, and the Museum of Northern Antiquities. The Museum of Northern Antiquities, established in 1819, is particularly notable as its first director, Christian Jürgensen Thomsen, developed the three-part system for classifying prehistory into the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The museum preserves and interprets material evidence of human activity and the natural world, reflecting an innate human desire to collect and understand.1

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