Gotland Museum

Visby, Sweden

The fine Gotlands Fornsal Museum provides comprehensive coverage of Visby's past. Housed in an 18th century distillery and a medieval warehouse, it holds five storeys of exhibition halls covering eight thousand years of history, as well as a good courtyard café and bookshop.

Among the most impressive sections are the Hall of Picture Stones, a collection of richly carved stones dating mostly from the 5th to 11th centuries, and the display of the Spillings Hoard – the richest of Gotland's seven hundred hoards. Found in 1999, this treasure, mostly from the Arab world, England and Germany, weighs 85 kilos. The Hall of Prehistoric Graves is equally fascinating, its glass cases displaying skeletons dating back six thousand years.

Other rooms trace the history of medieval Visby, with exhibits including a trading booth, where the burghers of Visby and foreign merchants dealt in commodities – furs, lime, wax, honey and tar – brought from all over Northern Europe. A series of tableaux brings the exhibition up to 1900, starting with Erik of Pomerania, the first resident of Visborg Castle, and leading on through the years of Danish rule, up to the island's 16th-century trading boom.

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Address

Strandgatan 14, Visby, Sweden
See all sites in Visby

Details

Founded: 1875
Category: Museums in Sweden
Historical period: Union with Norway and Modernization (Sweden)

Rating

4.3/5 (based on Google user reviews)

User Reviews

Anders Glansholm (5 years ago)
Värt ett besök
סיגל בן נון (5 years ago)
Ecxelent museum
Rick J (5 years ago)
If you find yourself with a little time to spare in Visby on the the Swedish island of Gotland then have a look at the art museum. The ground floor is travelling exhibitions which at the moment is on a science fiction theme and the second floor is for children with a good selection to keep most children entertained whilst you explore the permanent collection on the third floor. The museum isn't big but has a nice collection and you can certainly spend an hour or so there.
Suzanna Kwok (6 years ago)
Fun and informative!
Tomte4Play (7 years ago)
Free wlan
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