Mimisbrunnr.info

Museum Resources: Digital Collection Catalogues


Entry by Joseph Hopkins for Mimisbrunnr.info 2021.

Updated March 2025.

Special thanks to Ross Downing, Giorgia Sottotetti, Kati Rán, Kevin French, Olle Möllervärn, Ruben Terlouw, Ben Waggoner, Eirik Storesund, & Embla A. for their assistance in compiling the present resource.

Quick attribution:

  • Hopkins, Joseph S. 2021. “Museum Resources: Digital Collection Catalogues”. Mimisbrunnr.info. URL: https://www.mimisbrunnr.info/museum-resources-digital-collections


Museums throughout Europe house the most important objects studied by scholars active in Ancient Germanic studies. As of 2021, many larger museums in the region make their collections available to the public for free online. The present resource consists of a list of museum websites that contain such catalogues.

Most of the digital collections catalogues listed here are incomplete and/or lack photographs of much of their catalogue entries. Additionally, some extremely important collections–such as the Römisch-Germanisches Museum and the Museum für Archäologie Schloss Gottorf—do not make digital catalogues available to the public at the time of writing while other museums that undoubtedly administer collections important to the field, such as the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, are very difficult to approach.

Nonetheless, these collections are invaluable not only for scholars in the field but also for artists and enthusiasts interested in Ancient Germanic studies. Please note that this list is non-comprehensive and that Mimisbrunnr.info intends to expand and update it as time allows.

Denmark

Finland

Germany

Iceland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

Sweden

United Kingdom

United States

Other

  • Eitri: Digital catalogue (English). A database focused on historic depictions of Thor’s hammer. Compiled and maintained by scholar Katherine Beard.

  • Wikimedia Commons: Wikimedia Commons features many user-taken photographs of objects in museums. For example, see for example the category “Museums in Denmark by city”. While the quality of images within the database varies, Wikimedia Commons features a tremendous amount of material unavailable elsewhere and much of it is freely usable.