The world of the dead both frightens and entices - it is not for nothing that millions of tourists go to Egypt every year to see perhaps the most famous relics of the other world, mummies. Few people know that a meaningful acquaintance with the world of the dead can also be started in Lithuania. Our country has many tourist attractions that allow you to immerse yourself in dark history. National Tourism Promotion Agency "Travel in Lithuaniatogether with tourism information centers selected thematic proposals to get to know the other side - the sacred - side of the past.
"Dark (or black) tourism is becoming popular in the world, and also in Lithuania - a type of tourism that introduces not only the places of battles, mass deaths, forts, prisons, bunkers and similar places, but also burial customs, traditions and the human body. It attracts not only history and archeology lovers, but also those who are not usually interested in the past - the angle is so interesting that it turns into themed trips. In Lithuania, we have from possibly the oldest urn and bone altar to the grave of a horse buried alive and fragments of a whale, mammoth skeleton or even a sea unicorn tooth. You just need to choose the most interesting route and plan a trip - there is a choice", comments Neringa Sutkaitytė, local tourism expert of "Travel in Lithuania".
In the list of proposals compiled by the National Tourism Promotion Agency, there are as many as ten outing ideas, during which you can touch the other world and get to know another, little-known side of Lithuania's past.
Altar of skulls
In the dungeons of the Kretinga church, one of the most brutal testimonies about the 120th century has survived. the Swedes who robbed here at the beginning. They killed 300 local residents and Franciscan monks alive in this place. The remains were discovered and buried here in coffins only almost XNUMX years later. This mass grave is now marked by an altar, a sacrificial table with several found skulls embedded in it.
The world of the dead in Lithuanian Pompeii
In the first capital of Lithuania - Kernavė, also known as the Lithuanian Pompeii - not only people were once escorted to the world of the dead, but also horses. When you visit the museum of the Kernavė archaeological site, you will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the oldest burial customs and see rare exhibits from the country's prehistory.
A cremation grave of a 25-year-old woman with piles of stones and a surviving wrapping pin, as well as a clay urn with the burnt bones of a child, a forearm bone of a 50-year-old man and part of a woman's eye socket. These are the remaining 3 thousand. year-old exhibits from the cemetery of the Striped Ceramics culture. Among the exhibits are IX-X centuries. a horse grave, introducing the tradition of the Balts to bury not only people, but also animals.
Mummy at university
At all times, the structure of the human body has interested both the curious and scientists. Vilnius in the XNUMXth century. in the beginning, there was even an Anatomy Theater, where the exhibits of anatomy and zoology were shown to the audience. Today, their storage and accumulation continues Vilnius University Museum of Medical History of the Faculty of Medicine. Along with surgical tools, ancient medicines, pharmaceutical publications, the museum also stores pathological preparations and XNUMXth century. a man's mummy.
Where the dead serve the living
"The dead serve the living" - this is how the Anatomy Museum of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas presents the science of anatomy and the fact that the body of a dead person is an important educational tool. His collection includes bones, skeletons, preserved organs, embryos, body parts. There are also the remains of three people (two men and a girl) who mummified over time.
Monks in glass coffins
Baroque Liškiava St. In the basements of the Trinity Church and the monastery there is a preserved 5th century. the crypt of the Dominican monks. The XNUMX caskets in it are … glass. It was decided to bury the remains in this way during the restoration a couple of decades ago. There are many churches in Lithuania that have noblemen's sarcophagi in their burial cellars, but Liškiava stands out because the coffins are open and the remains can be viewed.
Lonely skulls
The information encoded in bones accidentally found during excavations sometimes remains a mystery. Here, those who visit the workshop of the sculptor J. Zikar's house-museum (Kaunas) in the Owl Hill are greeted by the empty eye sockets of a skull. This is one of the most mysterious museum exhibits, the history of which is not completely clear.
There is also a fragment of a human skull in the archeology exposition of the Hugo Šojaus Museum in Šilutė: 40th century. a human skeleton was found with a stone ax lying nearby. The bones were buried by people, and the ax and the upper part of the skull became a museum exhibit. During the research, it was found that the skull is 50-3100 years old. of a man from the late Neolithic period (2000-XNUMX BC).
In the Tauragė Regional Museum "Santaka" you can travel back to the Ice Age. A mammoth bone found near Tauragė, in the Sungailiškių gravel quarry, in the 74th century, is exhibited here. in the seventies. According to scientists, mammoths lived on the territory of Lithuania from 24 thousand years ago. up to 12 thousand years before Christ. Another interesting exhibit of the museum is XNUMX thousand. year old reindeer antler.
Whale oak
The oak trunk contains the jawbone of a blue whale and the rib of a mammoth. Such unexpected exhibits can be seen in the oldest Lithuanian antiquities museum - Dioniz Poška's Bauble (second) (Šilalė district). A fragment of the lower jaw of the great blue whale, which has about 50 thousand years, and parts of a mammoth rib were found in the peat bogs of the Bijotai area.
Animals untouched by time
Conditionally, mummies are sometimes called amber inclusions of animal origin - they are said to have preserved life for millions of years. For example, 15 thousand in the collection of objects with inclusions in the Palanga Amber Museum there is also a very rare exhibit - a lizard that lived back in the time of the dinosaurs. You can also see insects, arachnids and other animals trapped in the sap of the amber tree.
A collection of curiosities from around the world
There are also interesting exhibits in the lesser-known Vilnius University Zoological Museum, which is the oldest scientific zoological museum in Lithuania. He is extremely proud of the bird collection of Count Konstantin Tysenhaus, considered one of the oldest in Europe. It even contains particularly valuable exhibits from James Cook's expeditions. In the museum, you can also see a bowhead whale's jaw, a mustache and a "sea unicorn" narwhal tooth from the collection of curiosities of Kristupas Radvila Juodoj.
Before going to the facility, check its website for opening hours and visiting conditions. This way you will avoid surprises when the exposure changes.
