National Museum of Denmark in the context of "Ertebølle culture"

The Trundholm sun chariot (Danish: Solvognen) is a Nordic Bronze Age artifact discovered in Denmark. It is a representation of the sun chariot, a bronze statue of a horse and a large bronze disk, which are placed on a device with spoked wheels.

The sculpture was discovered with no accompanying objects in 1902 in a peat bog on the Trundholm moor in Odsherred in the northwestern part of Zealand, (approximately 55°55′N 11°37′E / 55.917°N 11.617°E / 55.917; 11.617). It is now in the collection of the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. It is featured on the 1000-krone banknote of the 2009 series.

Christian Jürgensen Thomsen (29 December 1788 – 21 May 1865) was a Danish antiquarian who developed early archaeological techniques and methods.

In 1816 he was appointed head of 'antiquarian' collections which later developed into the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen. While organizing and classifying the antiquities for exhibition, he decided to present them chronologically according to the three-age system. Other scholars had previously proposed that prehistory had advanced from an age of stone tools, to ages of tools made from bronze and iron, but these proposals were presented as systems of evolution, which did not allow dating of artifacts. Thomsen refined the three-age system as a chronological system by seeing which artifacts occurred with which other artifacts in closed finds. In this way, he was the first to establish an evidence-based division of prehistory into discrete periods. This achievement led to his being credited as the originator of the three-age system of European antiquity.

An arm ring, also known as an armlet or an armband, is a band of metal, usually a precious metal, worn as jewelry or an ornament around the biceps of the upper arm. The arm ring is similar to a bracelet or bangle, though it must be shaped and sized to fit snugly to the upper arm.

Often, when the word "ring" occurs in Bronze-Age and Iron-Age heroic literature it refers to an arm ring, rather than a finger ring.Within the context of the Scandinavian Bronze Age, archeological digs of graves suggest that arm rings were most commonly worn by men. Arm rings have also been found in Britain and Ireland, with artifacts dating from the Bronze Age till the Viking Age. Archeological discoveries of Bronze Age arm rings in Denmark suggest they were common Votive offerings during that period, found purposefully deposited in bodies of water or buried near large stones, hills, or barrows. It is believed that arm rings may have been bestowed as gifts by powerful lords to secure or maintain bonds of fealty or Vassalages, with evidence of this practice found in Scandinavian sagas and the Old English epic poem Beowulf. A distinctively decorated set of Danish arm rings within the National Museum of Denmark collection had acquired the name of "oath rings" during the 19th century by archeologists directly connecting those rings to such a practice detailed in the sagas, but they were later dated to the Bronze Age where there was less historical evidence for the giving of arm rings as part of oath making. Arm rings may have also been a method of storing silver during the Viking Age, a context wherein coins were less common. When silver was needed for use, a section of the arm ring would have been cut off, leading to the term hack silver.

The Gundestrup cauldron is a richly decorated silver vessel, thought to date from between 200 BC and 300 AD, or more narrowly between 150 BC and 1 BC. This places it within the late La Tène period or early Roman Iron Age. The cauldron is the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work (diameter: 69 cm (27 in); height: 42 cm (17 in)). It was found dismantled, with the other pieces stacked inside the base, in 1891, in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark (56°49′N 9°33′E / 56.817°N 9.550°E / 56.817; 9.550). It is now usually on display in the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, with replicas at other museums; it was in the UK on a travelling exhibition called The Celts during 2015–2016.

The cauldron is not complete, and now consists of a rounded cup-shaped bottom making up the lower part of the cauldron, usually called the base plate, above which are five interior plates and seven exterior ones; a missing eighth exterior plate would be needed to encircle the cauldron, and only two sections of a rounded rim at the top of the cauldron survive. The base plate is mostly smooth and undecorated inside and out, apart from a decorated round medallion in the centre of the interior. All the other plates are heavily decorated with repoussé work, hammered from beneath to push out the silver. Other techniques were used to add detail, and there is extensive gilding and some use of inlaid pieces of glass for the eyes of figures. Other pieces of fittings were found. Altogether it weighs just under 9 kilograms (20 lb).