The Historical Museum in Stockholm - from ancient to modern times

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The Historical Museum in Stockholm offers a journey from ancient times to the present. Along the way you can immerse yourself in the Viking worldview, see the glittering gold of all the rich treasures and be horrified by the bloody massacre at the Visby ring wall in 1361.

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Historical Museum

The Historical Museum is a state museum that is completely free to visit, with the exception of some guided tours and events. Most exhibitions are long-term, and only a few are changed.

Here you can see the world's largest exhibition on Vikings, the "Gold Room" and follow Sweden's history from ancient times to the present. We have (again) made a visit to this interesting museum!

The Historical Museum is located in Östermalm in the centre of Stockholm.

Start your visit to Antiquity

We were advised to discover the museum in chronological order, so we started with ancient times. Here you can "meet" a number of different life stories from prehistoric times - people buried or found in bogs who tell us about their time. And how fascinating it is to imagine our ancestors in front of the fire in a cave!

Step into the world of the Vikings

We then continued to the 'World of the Vikings' exhibition, which is the largest Viking exhibition in the world. Here you can learn about the Vikings' worldview, which centres around the tree Ygdrasil, and how people lived in the Viking Age.

It's a neat exhibition that, despite its size, feels manageable. There are many interactive elements, such as stepping into a house using VR goggles or rotating the Ygdrasil world tree to see where the humans, giants and Asgardian gods live.

On a board on the wall you can try writing in rune script. What did Peter write? FREEDOMtravel of course!

Now, of course, it is not possible to translate our letters exactlybut at least we tried to get as close as possible:

Glittering treasures in the Gold Room

When we were done with the older history, we went down to the lower level, where you can find the Gold Room. Outside the entrance is the Lion of Piraeus, which is a replica of a statue that stood in the Athens harbour city of Piraeus 2000 years ago.

Originally, fresh water came out of the lion's mouth for seafarers to take out into the Mediterranean. Thousands of years later, Vikings carved runes on the lion and in 1688 it was taken as a spoil of war by the European Union. Venice, where the statue still stands today.

The Gold Room itself is filled with ... yes, gold! Many of the treasures come from Öland, Gotland and Västergötland. Some of the gold has been used as a means of payment, while others have served as jewellery and status symbols for the rich in society.

Swedish history - the last thousand years

Finally, it was time to go up to the upper floor and tackle the 'History of Sweden' exhibition, which tells the story of the last thousand years in our country. You follow a timeline in the floor, which makes it easy to follow the development of time.

People and events along the way are carefully selected to avoid exhaustion, which is otherwise easily the case when familiarising yourself with a thousand years of Swedish history. In the first part, you get to meet St Birgitta in Stockholm. Vadstena and Queen Margaret, who formed the Kalmar Union.

One is also reminded of the Black Death and subsequent plague epidemics, which together killed between 50 and 75 per cent of Sweden's population. With all due respect to the ongoing pandemic, it can be said that it could be worse.

Here and there in the exhibition you will find various small signs with statements. By turning the sign over, you can find out whether the statement is true or false!

In the 16th century, you get to experience Johan III's meat-free table, and in the 17th century you get to know Sweden's 'old days'. In the 18th century, however, things get tough, and the century begins with 200,000 soldiers dying in Charles XII's war, often from cold or dysentery.

The 18th century is also an era of inventors and scientists, such as Polhemus, Linnaeus, Celsius and Scheele. And who wouldn't want their own little 'naturalie cabinet', a private collection of artefacts from nature?

The exhibition then continued through industrialisation, class society and free churches in the 19th century, past the poor Sweden of the early 20th century and into the present...

The Visby ring wall massacre

Another exhibition that was interesting (and horrible!) was the one about the massacre at the Visby ring wall in 1361, when the mercenaries of the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag killed 1800 Gotland farmers.

The poorly equipped Gotland farmers were killed at the wall and thrown into mass graves. Afterwards, lots of remains have been found, still in their chain mail. What a terrible massacre!

Medieval life, medieval art and medieval sounds

There are also three exhibitions that deal with the Middle Ages in different ways. In particular, there are many religious paintings and works of art, reminding us of the importance of the church at this time.

The "Medieval sounds" exhibition features recordings of medieval organs and church bells. There is also what is considered to be the oldest organ in the world, although only the body of the organ remains. The organ comes from Sundre Church on Gotland and was built in 1370.

More to see and do in the neighbourhood

The Historical Museum is large and after a visit here, you may not be able to do much more in one day. However, we offer some tips! To begin with, you will find another museum in the same building as the Historical Museum, the Economic Museum - Royal Coin Cabinet.

There are also a number of other exciting museums in the vicinity of the Historical Museum. In Östermalm you will find the Army Museum. On Djurgården you will find the Nordic Museum, The Viking Museum, Skansen and Vrak. If you go out to Gärdet instead, you can visit the Maritime Museum or the Ethnographic Museum.

Have you been to the Historical Museum in Stockholm? What did you think?

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