Thüringer Wald: hier entdecken Sie Thüringen

The geological-mineralogical collection

The history of the geological and mineralogical collection goes back to the 18th century to the early days of the Princely Natural History Cabinet. This is in line with the work of Georg Christian Füchsel, who also created the first geological map of a German area and left his mark on the collection. In the 19th century, too, the curators of the Natural History Cabinet increasingly devoted themselves to geology and mineralogy. 

The collection comprises more than 15,000 objects, mainly specimens from Europe and especially from the Central German mountains. It also contains a small collection of stone and iron meteorites.

In 2017, an important collection was added to the Natural History Museum's collection on permanent loan: the gold collection of Dr. Markus Schade, founder of the German Gold Museum in Theuern, which contains around 1,000 gold samples of European and foreign gold finds, including first evidence for specific regions. In the long term, the Gold Museum's collection is to be absorbed into the Natural History Museum and be present in the permanent exhibition.