Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz

The State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz (German: Staatliches Museum für Archäologie Chemnitz), abbreviated smac, is the archaeological and cultural-historical museum of the Free State of Saxony. Located in Chemnitz, Germany, at Stefan-Heym-Platz, it provides the first statewide permanent exhibition on archaeology in Saxony. Opened on 15 May 2014, the museum covers 300,000 years of human history in the region, spanning from the earliest human presence to the period of industrialization. It operates as the successor institution to the State Museum of Prehistory Dresden and forms part of the Archaeological Heritage Service (Landesamt für Archäologie Sachsen).

The museum was established as the successor to the State Museum of Prehistory Dresden, opening its doors on 15 May 2014. Its creation marked a significant institutional shift, bringing a statewide permanent archaeological exhibition to Saxony for the first time. The museum is integrated into the Archaeological Heritage Service, ensuring a direct link between ongoing archaeological fieldwork and public exhibition. In addition to its archaeological mission, the institution preserves the historical memory of its host building, dedicating three smaller permanent exhibitions to the history of the former Schocken department store, its founder Salman Schocken, and its architect Erich Mendelsohn.

The museum covers 300,000 years of Saxon history across a three-story permanent exhibition spanning approximately 3,000 square metres. The first floor covers the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods, addressing climate history, evolution, anthropology, zoology, genetics, and anatomy. The second floor presents farming cultures from the Neolithic period (5500 BC) to the early Middle Ages (800 AD), featuring Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age artifacts. The third floor focuses on the medieval world and the formative influence of mining on Saxon history, culminating in 1839 with the opening of the railway line from Leipzig to Dresden. A floating landscape model of Saxony traverses all three floors, utilizing video projections to show different historical states of the region, while an interactive handrail on the ground floor and floor-embedded mirrors provide additional digital access.

Notable artifacts include the oldest stone tools from the Middle Paleolithic period found at the Markkleeberg site, and a slate plate depicting horses from the Groitzsch site near Eilenburg, which is over 12,000 years old. The second floor houses the 7,000-year-old wooden frame of the Linear Pottery culture well from Eythra near Zwenkau, one of the oldest wooden buildings in Europe, alongside completely preserved ceramic vessels decorated with bark bast and pitch from the Neolithic well at Altscherbitz near Leipzig. Figurative highlights include the oldest clay figure in Central Europe with clearly male sexual characteristics from Zschernitz and the Venus of Zauschwitz, a female idol from the early Neolithic period. Bronze Age depots from Kyhna and Dobritz represent the Saxon Bronze Age (2200-800 BC). A museum laboratory created with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology illustrates differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, featuring a Glass Neanderthal inspired by the Glass Man in the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden. On the third floor, 1,200 everyday objects from excavations in Saxon city centers line a 40-meter-long rear wall, and a treasure trove of written records from the Dresden State Archives presents otherwise hidden archival holdings.

The museum is housed in the former Schocken department store, a building designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn at the end of the 1920s for the Schocken brothers' retail group. Construction began in July 1929, and the department store opened on 15 May 1930, quickly becoming an important economic factor in Chemnitz with over 700 employees. In 1933, the antisemitic Chemnitz Combat League for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses placed the store on a boycott list. Following the November pogroms of 1938, the Schocken family was expropriated and forced to emigrate to Palestine and the USA. On 9 December 1938, the company was renamed Merkur Kaufstätte Aktiengesellschaft, operating under that name from 1 January 1939. After the war, the slightly damaged building was re-expropriated and housed the State Insurance Institute, the People's Solidarity, and the Chemnitz Consumers' co-operative, which gave up the space in October 1950. The Handelsorganisation took over in early 1952, and by the beginning of 1965, the building was attached to the newly founded Centrum association. Separate bay windows along the curved window front now contain the exhibitions on Mendelsohn and the Schocken family.

The State Museum of Archaeology Chemnitz is located at Stefan-Heym-Platz in the Zentrum district of Chemnitz, Germany. It functions as the primary statewide institution for archaeological and cultural-historical education in Saxony, operating under the Archaeological Heritage Service. Visitors can access detailed information through interactive installations, including a ground floor handrail and mirrors reflecting the underside of the central landscape model. The museum provides a comprehensive chronological tour of Saxon history complemented by focused exhibitions on the architectural and Jewish commercial heritage of its historic building.