Natural History Museum Vienna: "War. Tracing an Evolution"

100 years after the end of World War I in 1918 and 400 years after the beginning of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, the NHM Vienna tries to make the phenomenon of "war" tangible through historical evidence in a special exhibition: "Does humanity learn from its history?", "What is aggression?", "Since when has there been war?", and "Is war inevitable because it is human?" are among the questions explored in the exhibition.

The exhibition was created in cooperation with the State Museum for Prehistory Halle and is based on the concept of the successful special exhibition "War – an archaeological search for traces", which was shown at the State Museum for Prehistory from November 6, 2015 to May 22, 2016. The Natural History Museum Vienna and the State Museum for Prehistory Halle have been connected through a lively scientific and technical exchange since the major state exhibition around the Nebra Sky Disc "The Forged Sky" (2004). This connection also led to the conclusion of the cooperation agreement for scientific collaboration and the implementation of the exhibition "War. Tracing an Evolution" in July 2017.

Tremendous Progress in Research

The research on the phenomenon of "war" has made tremendous progress in the last 20 years: battlefields and fortifications have been excavated, mass graves have been recovered, countless skeletons with signs of injuries have been examined, weapons as well as pictorial representations and historical texts have been analyzed. Archaeological and anthropological research has provided important insights into warfare and the consequences of wars from prehistory to modern times.

The evolution from tool to weapon, from individual combat to mass murder, from the mythical "hero" to the nameless soldier serving as "cannon fodder" is a central theme of the exhibition.

The mass grave of Lützen is for the first time outside Germany in the context of the exhibition "War. Tracing an Evolution", it is one of the highlights of the exhibition - on the one hand, as a vivid metaphor representing modern warfare and at the same time bridging back to the origins of war:

The battle of Lützen lasted for six hours, during which in 1632 in the fields around the small town between Leipzig and Naumburg, more than 6,000 men slaughtered each other - one of the greatest, deadliest, and bloodiest battles of the Thirty Years' War. In 2011, researchers raised a 55-ton block of earth with a base of six by seven meters, attached to a wooden and steel scaffold, from the ground - the tomb of 47 soldiers who lost their lives in the battle. A monument to war that was examined with the most modern techniques and painstakingly reconstructed individual fates and causes of death as detailed as possible.

Archaeological Search for Traces

The exhibition is an archaeological search for traces: "The impressive findings from Halle on the Saale are supplemented by Austrian skeletons from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages, proving traces of violence," explains Karin Wiltschke-Schrotta, interim head of the Anthropological Department of NHM Vienna. The selected human bones show various deadly injuries caused by Neolithic axes, Roman arrow bolts, Hunnish triple-bladed arrowheads, and blows with a medieval sword. "The stupidity of humans," says Anton Kern, Director of the Prehistoric Department of NHM Vienna, "seems limitless. This can be proven by their pursuit of ever 'better' weapons - and this has been the case since the Stone Age."

With 7,000-year-old weapons and human skulls with traces of violence, the exhibition provides the oldest known evidence of a massacre from Schletz, Lower Austria. Golden hair rings found in the Tollense Valley in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania testify to the existence of leaders, so-called elites, on the battlefield as early as the Bronze Age.

From the bones of those soldiers who were killed in the Napoleonic Wars on the battlefields of Asparn and Deutsch Wagram in 1809, a lot can be gleaned about the fate of individuals involved in the battle through forensic anthropological methods.

Special Exhibition in the Narrenturm

Prostheses that were meant to facilitate the lives of maimed soldiers after World War I and are now part of the pathological-anatomical collection of NHM Vienna in the Narrenturm demonstrate how lasting and destructive war can be for survivors. They serve as a transition to the second part of the exhibition:

In the Narrenturm, the special exhibition is expanded with the theme "Medicine in the First World War". In three renovated rooms, objects from the pathological-anatomical collection of NHM Vienna document the typical injuries of the first World War, the skills of Lorenz Böhler at the beginning of trauma surgery, and the reconstructive measures of that time.

The exhibition is a contribution to the European Cultural Heritage Year 2018.

Accompanying the exhibition, there will be a program with lectures, themed tours, and behind-the-scenes looks at the museum.

Additionally, background information, expert contributions, and interesting facts about war are published on the exhibition blog at www.nhm-wien.ac.at/krieg/blog

In a photo challenge titled #NHMLoveNotWar, users can post their contributions on "peace" in social media: https://www.nhm-wien.ac.at/makelovenotwar

The exhibition "War. Tracing an Evolution" is kindly supported by ASFINAG.

The Natural History Museum online: www.nhm-wien.ac.at