Home / Browse / Sciences / Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde,
[THOMSEN, Christian Jürgensen]
Leitfaden zur Nordischen Alterthumskunde,
herausgegeben von der Königlichen Gesellschaft für Nordische Alterthumskunde.
Publisher: Copenhagen, Im Secretariat der Gesellschaft; Hamburg, Perthes, Besser & Mauke; St. Petersburg, Graeff, 1837
Stock code: 42829
Price: £350 Currency Conversion
First Edition in German, first published in Danish in 1836, Thomsen's manual was immediately translated in recognition of its importance. The tripartite division suggested here was fundamental in winning acceptance for the idea of the Antiquity of Man, opening the way for the development of the discipline of prehistory. Thomsen was the first curator of the Danish National Museum of Antiquities, and his first task was "... to arrange the growing collections of the museum into some coherent order. In so doing he realized that the artefacts of iron must be later than many of those of bronze, and that stone tools were abundant before those of bronze came into use. This allowed him to produce a classification of three technological stages: of stone, bronze, and iron. His guidebook to the National Museum... introduced his Three Age system to the world of scholarship" (Renfrew Prehistory).
Octavo. (211 × 135mm). Contemporary cream glazed paper-covered boards, black morocco label to the spine. Wood-engraved illustrations to the text. Light browning, scattered foxing, ink stamp of a noble library verso of the title page, externally a little rubbed else very good.
