National Museum of Denmark

Behind this facade lies the oldest history in Denmark, and two of the objects inside are worth knowing about even if you do not go in. The first is the Sun Chariot. A bronze horse pulling a large disc on wheels, found in a bog in 1902 and made around 1400 BC. What matters is that the disc is gilded on one side only. The people who made it believed the sun is drawn across the sky from east to west by day, showing us its gold side, then travels back through the night with the dark side turned to the earth. That is a complete explanation of why it gets dark, worked out by people with no written language. The second is the Egtved Girl. She was buried in a hollowed oak log three and a half thousand years ago, and because the coffin filled with water she is preserved as almost nothing else is. Her hair, short and blonde. Her nails, neatly trimmed. Her string skirt and woollen belt. In a small box of birch bark lay an awl, some bronze pins and a hairnet. Then come the details that make her a person. At her feet lay the burned remains of a child of five or six. On her body someone had placed flowering yarrow, which blooms only in summer, so we know the season she was buried in. Beside her stood a bucket of beer, brewed from wheat, honey, bog myrtle and cowberries. She was sixteen or seventeen years old.