Historiska museet

Historiska museet, the Swedish History Museum, stands at Narvavägen 13-17 in the Östermalm district of Stockholm, Sweden, and covers Swedish history from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages. The building opened in 1940 and was designed by Bengt Romare and Georg Scherman. Its most famous space is the Gold Room, a vault holding more than 50 kilograms of gold and silver objects from the Bronze Age to the Viking and medieval periods, including arm rings, brooches and ceremonial jewellery. The Vikings exhibition covers trade, craft, belief and everyday life, with weapons, tools and reconstructed finds from sites such as Birka. The Prehistories exhibition shows Swedish life from the first hunters after the Ice Age, and the medieval hall holds church art, including large wooden crucifixes and altarpieces from the 12th to 15th centuries. A visit typically takes 1.5 to 2 hours, and the Gold Room and the Viking displays are the highlights worth photographing, although flash is not permitted. The museum is least busy on weekday mornings, and the crowds are small compared with central attractions, with school groups appearing on weekdays and families at weekends. General admission has often been free, while special exhibitions cost around SEK 150, and visitors under 19 enter free. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, with late opening on Wednesdays until 20:00. It is reached by a 10-minute walk from Karlaplan or Östermalmstorg metro, or by bus 69, and there is a cafe and a shop on site.