Museum for Pre- and Early History

The royal Kunstkammer (art cabinet) of the Hohenzollerns contained a collection of 'Germanic and Slav antiquities'. Around 1820 these were transferred to the 'Museum of the Antiquities of the Fatherland', which opened in Monbijou Palace in 1829. The Museum’s refurbished public collection in the Langhans Building of Charlottenburg Palace opened in June 2004, perfectly timed for the 175th anniversary.
Since October 2009 the Museum for Pre- and Early History is situated in the Neues Museum together with the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection and various artefacts from the Collection of Classical Antiquities. The various collections are no longer kept strictly apart, but are instead merged together in a novel display which affords visitors a fascinating insight into the origins of humankind.

Visitors are greeted on the ground floor by the room entitled "Odin, Urns, Looted Art", which presents the 180 year old history of the museum, with preserved wall paintings depicting scenes from Nordic mythology. The following room is dedicated to Heinrich Schliemann, who bequeathed his collection of Trojan antiquities to the museum "for their eternal preservation". The room beyond that reveals how various influences in the art and culture of Cyprus conflated in a unique way on the island.


On the first floor, the museum's piano nobile, the visitor is led from the Roman bronze statue of the Xanten Boy, into "The Roman Provinces". From there, the visitor has access to the "Pantheon" - Chipperfield's new South Dome Room, in which two colossal statues of divinities from the 2nd century AD originating from the Egyptian city of Lycopolis await visitors. The next room, "Rome's Northern Neighbours" is dedicated to the tensions between Rome and the Germanic peoples, while "Migration Period and Middle Ages" provides an insight into the time from the Migration Period to the Carolingian Renaissance.


The second floor takes the visitor back to the earliest history of humankind: from the Stone Age, with the famous finds of the Neanderthal from Le Moustier and of modern man from Combe Capelle, through the Neolithic Period and into the Bronze Age. The Berlin Gold Hat exerts a particular fascination here, whose secret symbolism illustrates how exactly calendric knowledge was preserved even so long ago. The tour ends in the Ice Age, with its rich Scythian and Celtic finds. The study collection in historical cabinets from the 19th century complement the exhibition.

Video
In March 2009, as inauguration its restoration, presented Sasha Waltz his dance performance Dialogue 09 in the yet empty rooms of the New Museum.