Museum for prehistory and early history

The Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, part of the Berlin State Museums, is one of major archaeological museums of Germany, and among the largest supra-regional collections of prehistoric finds in Europe. It was previously located in the former theatre building by Carl Ferdinand Langhans, next to Schloss Charlottenburg, and encompasses six exhibition halls on three floors. Since October 2009, the museum's exhibitions are now displayed in the Neues Museum on Museum Island. History The collection goes back to the Cabinet of curiosities and later art collection of the Hohenzollern who assembled an initial collection of ancient finds from 1830 onwards in Schloss Monbijou under the name "Museum Vaterländischer Altertümer" ( Museum of National Antiquities ). Later, the collection moved first to the Neues Museum, then, in 1886, to the Ethnographic Museum (Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse) and in 1921 into the Martin-Gropius-Bau, where it was renamed "Staatliches Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte" in 1931. The museum's financial supporters and contributors of material included Rudolf Virchow and.