302 ANTHROPOLOGY. 



remarked that in general this institution aims to explain the method 

 of colonization of Denmark, its relations with other countries, and the 

 progress of its indigenous civilization in pagan times (from the begin- 

 ning of the stone age to A. d. 1030) ; in the Catholic period (to A. d. 1536) ; 

 finally, alter the Reformation, in the short period during which the 

 ancient style of the Renaissance obtained, or, indeed, to the establish- 

 ment of absolute power iu Denmark (A. D. 1060). 



In the classification of objects, chronology has been rigorously ob- 

 served as far as this has been gradually worked out. We no longer 

 confine ourselves, as at first, to arranging the specimens of the pagan 

 era into great periods, simply the age of stone, the age of bronze, and 

 the age of iron; but we are forced to distinguish in each of these that 

 which belongs to the commencement or to the end, and also to the 

 transition from one to the other, in order to show clearly the gradual 

 progress of civilization and its passage from one primitive station to 

 another more advanced, and finally to discriminate between foreign in- 

 fiuence and the national and more independent labors. It has been a 

 matter of particular importance in this regard only to class by series 

 those objects found isolated, while the great finds of each period have 

 not been dissociated, but preserved in their entirety and arranged geo- 

 graphically. Thus it is possible not only to distinguish the objects of 

 each period, and, indeed, of each subdivision, but to recognize the 

 peculiarities belonging to the different sections of Denmark, whose 

 southern and western provinces were evidently affected much earlier 

 than the northern and eastern by foreign civilization, while the culture, 

 coming from the south, penetrated earlier into Denmark itself than into 

 the more northern and distant countries of Scandinavia — Sweden and 

 Norway. 



In connection with the Museum of Northern Antiquities and the Cabi- 

 net of Medals,* it is necessary to mention the Museum of Ethnography! 

 and the Cabinet of Antiques! as terms of comparison, which from many 

 points of view furnish valuable explanations of Danish antiquities. But, 

 as is perfectly natural in Danish museums, the principal effort is directed 

 toward making the most complete collections possible of all that char- 

 acterizes particularly the civilization of this country. 



But we do not stop in our historico-archaological museums at the 

 year 1660, the limit adopted for the Museum of Northern Antiquities. 

 In the conviction that modern history, from 1060 to the present time, 

 deserves, not less than ancient history, to be illustrated by contempo- 



Den Kgl. Mynt- og Medaille-Samling paa Prindsens Palais. (The Royal Cabinet 

 of Coins and Medals a1 the Palace of the Prince) Visitors' Guide. 8vo. Copen 

 hagen, L869, 



tC. L. Steinhauer. Kort Vejledning i det Kgl. ethnographiske Museum. (Guid< 

 to the Royal Ethnographic Museum.) 8vo. Copenhagen, 1874. Das kgl, ethnograph. 

 Museum in Copenhagen. 8vo. Copenhagen. 1876. 



I.. Miiller. Den Kgl. Antiksamling Eaandkatalog. (Catalogue of the Royal Col- 

 lection of Antiques.) Bvo. 2d edition. Copenhagen, 1872. 



