Photo: Jacek Halicki · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Muzeum Człowieka we Wrocławiu

University anthropological museum with skulls, skeletons and an Egyptian mummy; closed since 2020 until further notice because of a move.

Temporarily closed

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Temporarily closed. The museum has been closed since 2020 until further notice because of the planned move to its new seat at ul. Sienkiewicza.

About the museum

The origins of the Muzeum Człowieka (Museum of Man) go back to the inter-war period, when the collection was gathered by the Institute of Anthropology of the Faculty of Medicine. The museum operates at the Department of Human Biology of the University of Wrocław, and for decades it occupied premises, including a former chapel, in the Collegium Anthropologicum at ul. Kuźnicza 35.

The exhibition comprises three halls. In the ontogenesis hall the development of the human skull and skeleton is shown, along with bone changes caused by diseases and injuries. The burial hall shows, among other things, examples of natural mummification, and the third hall presents the origin and evolution of humans, including casts of the skulls of Australopithecus and Homo habilis. One of the best-known exhibits is the Egyptian mummy of a young woman, nicknamed the “Wrocław princess” (wrocławska księżniczka).

In 2020 the museum was closed until further notice. It was announced that it would move to a building at ul. Sienkiewicza in the complex of the Faculty of Biological Sciences, and that the building at ul. Kuźnicza would be taken over by the university administration. No date for reopening is known.

Highlights

Egyptian mummy of a young woman, known as the “Wrocław princess”
Skulls and skeletons from Neolithic and medieval cemeteries
Ontogenesis hall with examples of bone changes
Casts of the skulls of Australopithecus and Homo habilis