Cultural history

100,000 years of history in a single tower: After all the treasures of the Dukes, the Museum of History awaits visitors. Its collection is quite different yet just as rich, and was brought together exclusively by citizens from the end of the 19th century. Objects from the region are on display, from its prehistory to the modern day, ranging from archaeological finds to clothing, weapons and jewellery, and even an entire old pharmacy.

In the coming years, an interim exhibition (“Building Site: History”) will give way to a modern permanent exhibition covering over 100,000 years of Thuringia’s cultural and regional history. Numerous exhibits bring times from prehistory right up to German reunification to life – from Neanderthal tools to an elegant, lacquered box containing a lock of hair belonging to the British Queen Victoria and right up to a symbolic coffin for the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED). Works of modern art by Hannah Höch and Marianne Brandt await visitors in the Eva Maria Dicken Cabinet.