Floors
On the upper floor (Hochparterre) precious stones, minerals (some with origin in old Renaissance collections) and meteorites (the largest display collection in the world) can be seen, along with large dinosaur displays and rare fossils, and along with prehistoric art works: the Venus von Willendorf, the skeleton of Diplodocus, a giant topaz crystal weighing 117 kg (258 lb), and the gemstone-and-diamond bouquet of flowers which Maria Theresia had made as a present for her husband.
The first floor displays the species variety of the animal world, from protozoa to insects to highly developed mammals. Objects over 200 years old are of interest, not only on their own account but also as historical records for the history of science and the art of taxidermy: numerous stuffed animals of species either extinct, or extremely endangered, have made the collections irreplaceable.
Note that most signs and explanations in the museum are in German only.
Read more about this topic: Naturhistorisches Museum
Famous quotes containing the word floors:
“For every nineteenth-century middle-class family that protected its wife and child within the family circle, there was an Irish or a German girl scrubbing floors in that home, a Welsh boy mining coal to keep the home-baked goodies warm, a black girl doing the family laundry, a black mother and child picking cotton to be made into clothes for the family, and a Jewish or an Italian daughter in a sweatshop making “ladies” dresses or artificial flowers for the family to purchase.”
—Stephanie Coontz (20th century)
“The day was ending at it was the hour of which I do not want to speak, the hour without a name, when the sounds of evening ascended from all the floors of the prison in a procession of silence.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“your bare feet on the floors of silence
speak in rhymed stanzas to the furniture,
solemn chests of drawers and heavy chairs
blinking in the sun you have let in!”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)