Natural History Museum (Schleusingen)

The black grouse is the heraldic animal of the museum.

Germany's Fossil of the Year 2011: three exceptionally well-preserved skeletons of freshwater sharks, around 295 million years old.

The Natural History Museum in Schleusingen is located in the premises of Bertholdsburg Castle and uses minerals as well as fossils and corresponding living reconstructions to show the geological development of the last 300 million years with a focus on Thuringia .

History of the collection

The beginnings of today's collection go back to the collecting passion of Duke Anton Ulrich von Sachsen-Meiningen , which began around 1720 , whose collections from Vienna, Frankfurt and Amsterdam were brought together at Schloss Elisabethenburg in Meiningen after his death in 1763 . The resulting "Ducal Natural History Cabinet" was exhibited to the public for the first time in 1768 in the giant hall of the main wing and later, from 1814 to 1819, moved to the Ducal Garden House. In 1798, the collection was expanded to include the remains of a cave bear , deposits from local mines and other acquisitions, and between 1830 and 1840, minerals from Hungary were added. In 1837 a " tracking plate of the hand animal " was acquired from Hildburghausen , and in 1862 a larger collection of conchies was added.

On March 7, 1878, the natural history cabinet was donated to the Meiningen Secondary School, which was founded in 1838 and which already had a teaching collection on botany , zoology , geology and mineralogy going back to Johann Matthäus Bechstein and Albrecht Reinhard Bernhardi . In 1883 a fruit cabinet was added, and at the beginning of the 20th century several geological and paleontological collections were added. On February 23, 1945, heavy losses occurred due to bombing and theft, the remaining stocks were relocated to Elisabethenburg Palace in the first post-war years. In the period that followed, there were further additions to the collection such as bird preparations, mastodon teeth and bones or the collection from the Museum of Prehistory and Early History Weimar .

From 1984 to 1989 the holdings were merged with those from Schmalkalden , Eisfeld and Hildburghausen in the Natural History Museum founded in 1984 in Bertholdsburg Castle in Schleusingen, which already housed the " Franke Geological Museum" founded in 1934 . The latter was initiated by Paul Georgi and equipped with his own mineral collections. Since 1990 the permanent exhibition “Minerals - Fascination in Form and Color” and since 2001 the permanent exhibition “300 Million Years Thuringia” has been shown at Bertholdsburg.

Ralf Werneburg is the director .

The exhibition

In addition to natural history exhibits, historical equipment and facilities are also shown on the Bertholdsburg, and there are also many display boards on the history of the museum.

The tour begins with the mineral collection, which includes a large geode found in Brazil with amethysts and precious stones that can be viewed under microscopes. The part going back to Hermann Franke is shown and appreciated. Furthermore, the Thuringian mining is presented from gold mining to uranium mining. The history of the earth over the last 300 million years is chronologically documented by numerous fossils and made clear by reconstructions. Here space is particularly dedicated to the above-mentioned "hand animal" and two reconstructions of the dinosaur skeleton. In the entrance area you can see a sandstone slab from the Rotliegend of the Saar-Nahe basin with three shark skeletons ( Lebachacanthus colossus ) preserved in great detail . The three specimens were named Fossil of the Year by the Paleontological Society in 2011 .

Library

The museum has been keeping the Henneberg High School Library from the Henneberg High School "Georg Ernst" since 1958 . The Schleusinger grammar school library has survived almost completely and is one of the oldest of its kind.

gallery

• 

  "Giant geode " with amethysts
  from Brazil .

• 

  Right: Sandstone slab with "hand animal" ( Chirotherium barthii ). The corresponding plaster cast (left) is a reconstruction of the original footprints (colored yellow).

• 

  Two dinosaur skeletons:
  on the left the prosauropod Plateosaurus ,
  on the right the theropod Liliensternus .

Web links

Commons : Natural History Museum Schleusingen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Museum website
• The 2011 Fossil of the Year on the Paleontological Society website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Entry in the manual of the historical book inventory online

Coordinates: 50 ° 30 ′ 33.2 "  N , 10 ° 44 ′ 57.3"  E