Fossils and rock sequences in the Humboldt Building of TU Bergakademie Freiberg: exhibition of the Paleontological and Stratigraphic Collections.
April 10, 2025 – November 4, 2026
On show is a collection of over 400 specimens, acquired in 2018, from the Mansfeld-Sangerhausen mining region, including many copper shale specimens with traces of ore and rare reference samples.
The Paleontological and the Stratigraphic Collections belong to the Geoscience Collections of TU Bergakademie Freiberg. Their origins lie in the time before Abraham Gottlob Werner, in the academy's mineral cabinet. Werner gave the world's first lecture on paleontology in 1799 and created his own collections of shells, zoophytes and fossils for teaching, which later passed into the Bergakademische Sammlung (Mining Academy Collection).
In the 19th century, professors such as Breithaupt, Reich, Cotta, Stelzner and Beck enlarged the holdings through their own collecting. Around 1859 a catalog listed about 8,500 animal fossils and 980 plant fossils. The most historically valuable pieces include originals relating to Knorr and Walch's work on fossils, plant fossils from the Saxon Upper Carboniferous and Permian, and types and first identifications by important researchers.
Today both collections are housed in the Institute of Geology, the Alexander von Humboldt Building, and together form a large scientific archive of about 1.2 million specimens, around one million of them microfossils. The permanent display explains the basics of fossilization, systematics, paleobiology and the phylogeny of organisms, with an emphasis on invertebrates and geologically important plants.
| Adults | €1.50 |
|---|---|
| Reduced | €1 |
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
The museum hasn’t published any information on this.
| Good to know | Visits only by prior appointment, made by phone or email with the collection management. |
|---|
