castle of Christiansborg (Jørgen Jensen, pers. comm.), and it only became
‘national’ in 1892 3 (despite the fact that in 1807 Nyerup had called it the
National Museum in his writings (Bjurstro ̈m 1996: 43)). This seems to indicate
that, at least in its early years until the arrival of Worsaae, the emphasis was not
on its nature as a national institution, and the symbolic weight of the title
‘national’ was not perceived as essential.
In theWrst years the museum, administered by the Committee for Antiqui-
ties, was still modest. The collections were closed to the public and stored in
the loft of a church belonging to the university library. They wereWrst open to
the public in 1819 for two hours a week—although this was not very diVerent
from other institutions, such as the British Museum discussed in Chapter 2
(Miller 1973). Nevertheless, Thomsen’s endeavours were successful in neigh-
bouring countries. The Danish example was followed in Norway and Sweden,
where universities either opened museums or refurbished their old cabinets
and staged more modern exhibitions. In Norway the universities of Christi-
ania (present-day Oslo) and Bergen opened in 1810 and 1825. In Sweden
Bror Emil Hildebrand (1806–84), a young scholar from Lund who had been
trained partly by Thomsen, reorganized the collection of the cabinet of
his home university and opened it to the public for—again—just two hours
a week in the 1830s (Klindt-Jensen 1975: 48–65).
The prominence acquired by the Copenhagen museum in its early years
was due to the organization of the collections by Christian Ju ̈rgensen Thom-
sen, the curator from 1816. Perhaps in an attempt to imitate the chronological
ordering of the exhibition of the Museum of French Monuments—Nyerup
was a member of the commission—Thomsen wished to produce a scheme for
sequentially arranging the collections. He devised the Three Age System—
Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age, which would become a crucial tool for
the chronological classiWcation of prehistoric material throughout Europe
and elsewhere. Thomsen’s endeavours, however, seem to be more closely
associated with the Enlightenment than the nationalistic era. This was not
the case with his heir in the post, Worsaae (Chapter 12), whose nationalistic
stance is evident in many of his writings. Not surprisingly, Worsaae saw the
exploits of the early years of Danish prehistory from a nationalist perspective.
Explaining Thomsen’s achievements, Worsaae proudly stated that ‘[through]
the excellent material of national antiquities collected by Thomsen and
3 In 1892, probably following the proposal of Worsaae’s successor, Sophus Muller (1842–1934),
the Royal Museum of Northern Antiquities was reorganized and uniWed with others, such as the
Ethnographical Museum, the Antique Cabinet and the Royal Coin Collection under the name ‘The
National Museum’ (Jørgen Jensen, pers. comm.). The absence of the ‘national’ in the Royal Society
of Northern Antiquaries (Kongelige Nordiske Oldskift-Selskab) founded in 1825 should also be
noted in this context.
326 National Archaeology in Europe