From the Earliest Days

Zagreb, Croatia

May 24, 2025

The center of Zagreb is compact and cozy and one can go from one end to the other before realizing it. But for a small city, it has an astonishing number of museums. Better yet, many are decidely quirky. The city planners get a thumbs up for that in my opinion! What other city in the world has a Museum of Broken Relationships or a Museum of Lost Tales or a Museum of Cartoons or a Museum of Selfie and Memories? And those are just a few of them. Yup, definitely a thumbs up.

I of course being incurably addicted to ancient history, made a beeline for the Archeological Museum. Not knowing much about Croatian history, I was keen to pore over the exhibits. Especially since it seems rare to find Croatian history that doesn’t begin with the Roman age.

The oldest artifact displayed is a vase shaped like a bird from the 3^rd millennium BCE, found in eastern Croatia. And of the same era, is a bowl with curious spiral designs. I ‘ve seen those before! The spiral designs repeated itself in the jewelry in the adjacent exhibit in metal and gold dating from the Iron age of roughly 1200 BCE. This cannot be a coincidence I found myself thinking. I saw similar designs in the National Museum of Georgia in Tblisi that are from similar times.

The gold ornaments are more basic but didn’t I see them in Kutaisi, Georgia among the treasures of Colchis ? Could it be that the Colchis culture traveled west to Croatia? Or perhaps these items were brought or bought by merchants? Across the Black Sea from Kutaisi and overland might be a bit of a stretch but not unthinkable. Happily pondering connections, I meandered on.

Staring at a pair of stylized female figure from the 2^nd millennium BCE I thought of the Hittite figurines I’d seen in the museum of Anatolian Civilization in Ankara. Those too were from the same era. There simply has to be a connection! I wish I could ask someone. But there is no resident historian here and the pair of young museum attendants were too intent on their phones to be bothered. A cup with a deer-like handle too stirs my memory. Another item that looks like the Hittite ones! The same figure, the same horns.

One wing of a floor is devoted to Egyptian artefacts but Egyptian rule never extended this far north. During 19^th century when Egyptomania swept through Europe, these were brought here. The funerary jars, a few mummies, some sarcophagi were all acquired during that time. The most exciting perhaps is the Zagreb mummy, called Nesi-Hensu. Bought in Alexandria in 1848 by a private collector, it was donated to and has been kept in the Zagreb museum since 1867. She is a woman somewhere between thirty and forty and although exceptionally well-preserved – with teeth, nails and hair almost intact, her uniqueness stems from the bandages and wrappings. Written in Etruscan, the wrappings constitute the Linen Book of Zagreb. It is the longest known Etruscan document and is still of considerable interest among researchers.

Given the extent of Greek civilization, it is surprising that there aren’t more exhibits. A few urns and vases and some statuettes populate a small section of the museum.

Some exhibits stemming from the Roman era are housed in a small section. Beyond that is a chronological account of battles and skirmishes of the middle ages but stops abruptly somewhere in circa eight hundred.