The Drents Museum

Drenthe is peat country, and peat keeps things. Cutters working the bogs turned up bodies that the acid water had preserved down to hair and skin, and several of them are here, including the Yde Girl, found in 1897 and still recognisably a face. In another case sits the Pesse canoe, a hollowed pine log carbon dated to around eight thousand years before our era and usually described as the oldest boat yet found anywhere. Around them are finds from the hunebedden, the megalithic tombs scattered across the province. The museum occupies a group of old provincial buildings with a modern hall dug in underneath.

History

The museum was founded on 28 November 1854 by the King's Commissioner of Drenthe as the Provincial Museum of Drents Antiquities. A new wing designed by Erick van Egeraat opened in November 2011, together with a depot for about 90,000 objects, and in 2023 the museum had 179,345 visitors (Wikipedia, Drents Museum).

What to look for

• The bog bodies - preserved by peat, displayed plainly and without much softening.
• The Pesse canoe - a hollowed log boat from the Mesolithic, and unremarkable to look at.
• The hunebedden finds - pottery and tools from Drenthe's megalithic tombs.
• The buildings themselves - old provincial offices linked to an underground exhibition hall.

When to go

Year-round and fully indoors, so it works as the wet-weather half of a day spent looking at hunebedden out in the countryside. Weekday mornings are near empty. The underground hall takes large touring exhibitions, which are the busiest times and the only ones where booking ahead is worth it.

Before you go

It is a small provincial museum and two hours covers it comfortably. The bog bodies are genuinely grim and not something to walk small children past without warning. Some labels are much fuller in Dutch than English. Assen itself has little else, so the museum has to justify the journey on its own.

Nearby

The hunebed tombs are scattered north and east of Assen, best reached by bike.

Key facts