Natural History Museum, Berlin
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Established | 1810 |
---|---|
Location | Invalidenstraße 43 10115 Berlin, Germany |
Coordinates | 52°31′48″N 13°22′46″E / 52.53000°N 13.37944°E |
Type | Natural history museum |
Director | Johannes Vogel |
Website | www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin |
The Natural History Museum (German: Museum für Naturkunde) is a natural history museum located in Berlin, Germany. It exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history and in such domain it is one of three major museums in Germany alongside Naturmuseum Senckenberg in Frankfurt and Museum Koenig in Bonn.
The museum houses more than 30 million
In November 2018 the German government and the city of Berlin decided to expand and improve the building for more than €600 million.[1]
Name
The museum's name has changed several times. German speakers mainly call this museum Museum für Naturkunde since this is the term on the façade. It is also called Naturkundemuseum or even Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin so that it can be distinguished from other museums in Germany also named as Museum für Naturkunde. The museum was founded in 1810 as a part of the Berlin University, which changed its name to Humboldt University of Berlin in 1949. For much of its history, the museum was known as the "Humboldt Museum",[2] but in 2009 it left the university to join the Leibniz Association. The current official name is Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung and the "Humboldt" name is no longer related to this museum. Furthermore: there is another Humboldt-Museum in Berlin in Tegel Palace dealing with brothers Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt.
The Berlin U-Bahn station Naturkundemuseum is named after the museum.
Exhibitions
Since the museum renovation in 2007, a large hall explains biodiversity and the processes of evolution, while several rooms feature regularly changing special exhibitions.
Dinosaur Hall
The specimen of Giraffatitan brancai[3] in the central exhibit hall is the largest mounted dinosaur skeleton in the world.
It is composed of fossilized bones recovered by the German
The historical mount (until about 2005) was 12.72 m (41 ft 5 in) tall, and 22.25 m (73 ft) long. In 2007 it was remounted according to new scientific evidence, reaching a height of 13.27 m. When living, the long-tailed, long-necked
Archaeopteryx
The "Berlin Specimen" of Archaeopteryx lithographica (HMN 1880), is displayed in the central exhibit hall. The dinosaur-like body with an attached
Recovered from the German
Minerals Halls
The MFN's collection comprises roughly 250,000 specimens of minerals, of which roughly 4,500 are on exhibit in the Hall of Minerals.[4][5]
Evolution in action
A large hall explains the principles of evolution. It was opened in 2007 after a major renovation of parts of the building.
Tristan – Berlin bares teeth
The Museum für Naturkunde normally exhibits one of the best-preserved Tyrannosaurus skeletons ("Tristan") worldwide. Of approximately 300 bones, 170 have been preserved, which puts it in the third position among others.[6]
Wet Collection
The glass-walled Wet Collection Wing with 12.6 km of shelf space displays one million specimens preserved in an ethanol solution and held in 276,000 jars.[7]
History
Minerals in the museum were originally part of the collection of instructors from the Berlin Mining Academy. The University of Berlin was founded in 1810, and acquired the first of these collections in 1814, under the aegis of the new Museum of Mineralogy. In 1857, the paleontology department was founded, and 1854 a department of petrography and general geology was added.
By 1886 the university was overflowing with collections, so design began on a new building nearby at Invalidenstraße 43, which opened as the Museum für Naturkunde (Natural History Museum) in 1889. The museum was built on the site of a former ironworks and this is reflected in two spectacular cast iron stairwells within the building.
Of particular significance is the contribution of the first director after the move to the new building. In the past the museum simply consisted of the entire collections being open to the public, but Karl Möbius instigated a clear split between a public exhibition space with a few choice specimens, together with explanations of their relevance, and the remainder of the collection held in archives for scientific study.
The collections were damaged by the Allied bombing of Berlin during World War II. The eastern wing was severely damaged, and was rebuilt only in 2011, now housing the alcohol collections (partly publicly accessible).
In 1993, after the shake-up caused by the
See also
- List of museums in Germany
- List of natural history museums
- List of tourist attractions in Berlin
- Biodiversity Heritage Library for Europe (Museum für Naturkunde is a lead institution)
- scholarly journalsassociated with the museum)
References
- ^ Sentker, Andreas. "Ideen für das Überleben der Menschheit". 2018-11-14 (in German). Retrieved 18 November 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-253-34817-3
- ^ Gregory S. Paul formally moved the Brachiosaurus brancai species to a new subgenus (Giraffatitan) in 1988, and George Olshevsky promoted the new taxa to genus in 1991. Although the change has been generally accepted among scientists, as of 2015 the museum's labels still use the old genus name.
- ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung Online Wissenschaft im Paradies – Schöner forschen, accessed 9 September 2011
- ^ MFN entry in the database University museums and collections in Germany of the Hermann von Helmholtz-Zentrums für Kulturtechnik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Archived 3 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 9 September 2011
- ^ Tristan exhibition Tristan – Berlin bares teeth, Retrieved 4 February 2017
- ^ Wet Collection Wet Collections, accessed 28 September 2019
Further reading
- Olshevsky, G. (1991). "A Revision of the Parainfraclass Archosauria Cope, 1869, Excluding the Advanced Crocodylia". Mesozoic Meanderings #2. 1 (4): 196 pp.
- Paul, G. S. (1988). "The brachiosaur giants of the Morrison and Tendaguru with a description of a new subgenus, Giraffatitan, and a comparison of the world's largest dinosaurs". Hunteria. 2 (3): 1–14.
- Maier, Gerhard. African dinosaurs unearthed: the Tendaguru expeditions. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2003. (Life of the Past Series).
- Damaschun, F., Böhme, G. & H. Landsberg, 2000. Naturkundliche Museen der Berliner Universität – Museum für Naturkunde: 190 Jahre Sammeln und Forschen. 86–106.— In: H. Bredekamp, J. Brüning & C. Weber (eds.). Theater der Natur und Kunst Theatrum Naturae et Artis. Essays Wunderkammern des Wissens, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin & Henschel Verlag. 1–280. Berlin.
- Heinrich, Wolf-Dieter; Bussert, Robert; Aberhan, Martin (2011). "A blast from the past: the lost world of dinosaurs at Tendaguru, East Africa". Geology Today. 27 (3). Wiley: 101–106. S2CID 128697039.