Museum sights in Uppsala
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A
Museum Gustavianum
A wondercabinet of wondercabinets, the Museum Gustavianum rewards appreciation of the weird and well organised. The shelves in the pleasantly musty building hold case after case of obsolete tools and preserved oddities, like Joseph Cornell shadowboxes gone wrong: stuffed birds, astrolabes, alligator mummies, exotic stones and dried sea creatures. Holding wider appeal is the 17th-century Augsburg Art Cabinet and its thousand ingenious trinkets. Don’t miss Olof Rudbeck’s vertiginous anatomical theatre, where executed criminals were dissected.
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B
Carolina Rediviva
Rare-book fiends should go directly to Carolina Rediviva, the university library. In a small, dark display room, glass cases hold precious maps and manuscripts, including some illuminated Ethiopian texts and the first book ever printed in Sweden. Occupying its own glowing VIP nook is the surviving half of the Codex Argentus (AD 520), aka the Silver Bible, written in gold and silver ink on purple vellum; aside from being pretty, it’s also linguistically important as the most complete existing document written in the Gothic language.
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C
Treasury
Gustav’s funerary sword, silver crown and shiny golden buttons are kept in the treasury in Domkyrka’s north tower, along with a great display of medieval textiles. Particularly fine are the clothes worn by the three noblemen who were murdered in the castle: they’re the only example of 16th-century Swedish high fashion still in existence.
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D
Upplandsmuseet
Upplandsmuseet, in an 18th-century watermill, houses county collections on folk art, music and the history of Uppsala from the Middle Ages onwards, as well as more modern displays. (A recent installation presented photographs from the life of author Astrid Lindgren.) Kids particularly will find the inventive dioramas and reconstructions engrossing.
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E
Gamla Uppsala Museum
Gamla Uppsala Museum contains finds from the cremation mounds, a poignant mix of charred and melted beads, bones and buckles. More intact pieces come from various boat graves in and around the site. The museum is arranged as a timeline – useful for recreating the history of the area.
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F
Linnémuseet
No matter how many times the brochures refer to Linné’s ‘sexual system’ of classification, the excitement to be had at Linnémuseet is primarily intellectual; still, botanists and vegetarians will enjoy a visit to the pioneering scientist’s home and workshop.
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Peace Museum
In the dungeon below Uppsala Slott’s south tower is the Peace Museum, with displays on various world conflicts and atrocities, as well as Sweden’s long record of neutrality and the achievements of former UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld.
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G
Disagården
Follow signs from the grave mounds to Disagården, a 19th-century farming village turned open-air museum consisting of 26 timber buildings and a platform stage that serves as the focal point for Uppsala’s Midsummer celebrations.
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H
Uppsala Art Museum
Located at the Uppsala Slott entrance marked E, Uppsala Art Museum displays Swedish and international contemporary art and ceramics as well as the art-study collection of Uppsala University.
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I
Vasaborgen
In the ruins of the death-stained dungeons is a waxworks museum, Vasaborgen, where Renaissance scenes and intrigues are brought to life.
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