www.silkeborgmuseum.dk/en/udstillinger.htmlSince 1951 the collections of the museum have been housed in the oldest building in town, Silkeborg Manor, erected in 1767. The new museum building was opened in 1991.
The collections include artefacts and topics from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age (where the Tollund Man is displayed), Viking Age, and Middle Ages; also the castle of Silkeborg, Silkeborg as a woodland area town, old crafts, peasant culture, and Victorian interiors. In the workshop a potter demonstrates her craft, which is typical of this region. Silkeborg Museum's small workshop with handmade paper has been moved to Papirmuseet Bikuben. This new paper museum opend in 2004 in the former vat building of the new Music and Theatre House in Silkeborg.
Stone Age
The early hunting societies lived along the shores of river Gudenå and lake Bølling. The museum vitrines diplay the hunters' tools, weapons and ornaments, such as flint cores, flint-core axes, pointed axes, antler axes, arrowheads, spearheads, knives, burins, and scrapers. The farmers' characteristic tools are displayed; polished stone axes, sickles, ornamented pottery, and an impressing collection of battle axes. Photos and drawings explain flint mining and production of tools.
Bronze Age
The collection includes a number of rock carvings of cup shapes and wheel symbols. A drawbar from a two-wheeled cart found in lake Bølling, so far the oldest wagon part of Northern Europe. Display of daggers, short swords, spearheads, palstaff, sword with scabbard, ornamental buttons, fibulae, bangles, razor, and many other artefacts. The burial customs of the Bronze Age are shown in an overview.
Iron Age
The comprehensive Iron Age exhibition is displayed in the new museum building. Tollund Man, discovered in 1950, is our most important find and a direct contact to the past. The visitor will be face to face with the Iron Age. The exhibition is constructed around artefacts and replicas. The following topics are on display: agriculture, nutrition, textiles and clothing, hair styles, iron extraction and smithing, pottery, and the world of women, men, and children. A large variety of objects, photos, and replicas is on display, among these a cart, a primitive plough, ceramics, iron smelting ovens, different types of clothing. The new building also houses plaster castings of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius' triumphal column of around 180 AD, and a map of the museum's digging activities in the Silkeborg area. A visit to the Iron Age exhibition is a visit into a world of many colours and sensations.
Viking Age and Medieval Times
These ages are well represented at the museum although no spectacular finds of these times have been made in the region. But the museum's excavations year after year yield new evidence. A large Viking Age farmstead has been excavated next to Gødvad church. The museum shows various forms of Medieval church buildings and inventory and a Romanesque granite baptismal font. A baptismal basin and jar and a series of painted figures of saints are diplayed. Three vitrines contain finds from early Medieval water mills, which give an insight into the life connected with the mill, e.g. wooden plates, dishes, children's toys, combs, knives, etc. The skeleton of a Medieval cow and finds from an old defensive structure in nearby lake Thorsø are also on display.
Silkeborg Castle
Today the ground structure of the 15th century stronghold is still to be seen on the Caste Islet next to the bridge across lake Langsø. At the museum a miniature model of the castle and artefacts found during the excavations in 1949-52 are displayed; among other objects are medieval large bricks, a weathervane, weapons, canonballs, utensils from the kitchen of the castle, footwear, gambling pieces, pieces of tiles and glass.
Silkeborg - a woodland area
The country surrounding Silkeborg is a woodland area, and this is reflected in the local cultural history. The importance of the woodland is seen in many of the topics shown at the museum; hunting, and production of glass, clogs, and pottery. At the end of the 16th century the production of glass in Denmark was located in this area. Place names such as Glarbo (derived from 'glass') and Hyttekær (derived from 'huts', i.e. 'glass huts') bear witness to this activity. The vitrines at the museum show maps of excavations and artefacts. A small vitrine shows finds from the glass blower's workshop at Silkeborg Castle; among other objects is a glazier's cutting iron, the predecessor of the glazier's diamond - for cutting glass and window panes. With relation to the local glass production the museum shows a collection of Danish glass produced between 1825 and World War I. The woodlands were used by the well-to-do classes as hunting grounds. The display of a wild boar alludes to the former royal hunts in this area. Another vitrine shows hunting motives and weapons. Clog making was an important cottage industry. On display is a complete clog maker's workshop and set of tools. Wheel-making was an important village industry in the areas north and west of Silkeborg, and the museum shows a cartwright's workshop and other wooden artefacts produced locally. The woodland also supplied fuel for the large potteries of the area, mainly in the villages of Sorring and Tovstrup. The exhibition gives an overview of this production and its development by showing maps, photos, and a large collection of artefacts.
Silkeborg as a trading centre; Michael Drewsen and Robert Jones
Silkeborg is a new town which grew up partly as an industrial town based on the paper mill, partly as a trading centre by royal charter. The museum shows an exhibition of the pioneer times concentrated around factory owner Michael Drewsen and his paper mill. The parlour of the Drewsen family is on display with its table, chairs, and settee. The walls are hung with paintings, one of the papermill, portraits of Michael Drewsen and his wife, Amalie Drewsen, and other paintings with motives from the town and its surroundings. A vitrine contains Michael Drewsen's decoration received for meritorious services, his signet ring and pen, candlesticks from his home and family jewellery. Standing on the window sill is a study of the town square statue of Drewsen. Silkeborg Museum also has a fully furnished parlour from 1862, Jones' parlour. Merchant Robert Jones married in 1862, and his father-in-law gave the young couple a set of parlour furniture in the style of the day. The new trend was to place table and chairs in the centre of the room. A rocking chair represents another new trend.
Crafts and cottage industries
Apart from the crafts characteristic of the area Silkeborg Museum shows a number of other trades: barber, cobbler, hatter, cooper, and wood carver. Domestic industries are represented in a room showing a loom, tools for wool preparation, flax processing, and straw crafts. A vitrine shows objects from a grocer's shop. In the museum front hall, inventory from an old general store today serves as the museum shop and ticket counter. In the workshops in the museum garden traditional pottery and handmade paper are demonstrated.