Museumsportal Berlin

The Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Museum of Pre- and Early History) is one of the largest collections spezializing in the pre- and early history of the Old World. It presents its expansive collections together with objects from the Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung (Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection) and the Antikensammlung (Collection of Classical Antiquities) on three floors of the Neues Museum.

Visitors are greeted on the ground floor by the room entitled "Odin, Urns, Looted Art" (Room 102), which presents the 180 year old history of the museum, with preserved wall paintings depicting scenes from Nordic mythology. The following room is dedicated to Heinrich Schliemann, who bequeathed his collection of Trojan antiquities to the museum "for their eternal preservation". The room beyond that reveals how various influences in the art and culture of Cyprus conflated in a unique way on the island. On the first floor, the museum’s piano nobile, the visitor is led from the Roman bronze statue of the Xanten Boy, into "The Roman Provinces" (Room 202). From there, the visitor has access to the "Pantheon" – Chipperfield’s new South Dome Room, in which two colossal statues of divinities from the 2nd century AD originating from the Egyptian city of Lycopolis await visitors. The next room, “Rome’s Northern Neighbours” (Room 204) is dedicated to the tensions between Rome and the Germanic peoples, while "Migration Period and Middle Ages" (Room 206) provides an insight into the time from the Migration Period to the Carolingian Renaissance. The second floor takes the visitor back to the earliest history of humankind: from the Stone Age, with the famous finds of the Neanderthal from Le Moustier and of modern man from Combe Capelle, through the Neolithic Period and into the Bronze Age. The Berlin Gold Hat exerts a particular fascination here, whose secret symbolism illustrates how exactly calendric knowledge was preserved even so long ago. The tour ends in the Ice Age, with its rich Scythian and Celtic finds. The study collection in historical cabinets from the 19th century complement the exhibition.