Austria is rich in museums: historical, cultural, sports, thematic. The Anatomical Museum in Innsbruck is one of the ambiguous sights: the collection will be interesting to curious and extreme people, but it is not recommended for the faint of heart. The museum has collected hundreds of exhibits related to the human body. Visitors will be able to see skeletons, individual bones, alcoholic internal organs, so after visiting many people get the impression that a person is an ordinary “bag with bones and meat”, and not a crown of nature. If you love adrenaline and are not afraid of such ambiguous collections - take an hour to the museum, impressions will remain for a long time!
A bit of history
The Anatomical Museum was founded in the 17th century by Professor Friedrich von Stadtlender, who taught at a local university. The professor first began to perform autopsy, studying the "inner world" of a person: the bodies of the executed were used for this, of which there were many. Everyone could attend the event. People were so interested in what was inside their bodies and how it looked like. Crowds of onlookers gathered, as if a concert was taking place. The professor also alcoholized body parts and dried skeletons to educate students at the university. The executed people often encountered deviations, diseases of the organs, broken joints - all this became the basis of the future collection.
From 1800 to 1943, due to prolonged hostilities, most of the exhibits were destroyed or lost. Recovery began in the late 1940s with the help of medical professor Werner Platzer.
Museum Feature
The exposition tells about a 400-year study of the human body. The first objects are the skulls of people who died long before the sightseeing opened: their head bones are decorated with flowers and other drawings. The hall with bone exhibits includes skeletons of not only people, but also animals. Visitors will see differences and similarities.
The museum has a gallery of paintings: the processes of preparation and reconstruction of skeletons are captured in the paintings. The preparation is divided into 2 parts: wet (when soft tissue is separated from the bones) and dry (preparation of the skeleton for the exhibition). Today, more and more work is being done with animal skeletons.
Interesting Facts
- Visitors have the opportunity to attend the preparation of the skeleton.
- The key place of the exhibition is the skeleton of the tallest Austrian: 221 centimeter.
- Entrance to the museum is free.
- From June to September, the museum is closed for visits: a tour is possible with a personal agreement.
The object belongs to museums.
