The National Museum of Iceland (Þjóðminjasafn Íslands) was established on 24 February 1863, with Jón Árnason

Jón Árnason (author)

Jón Árnason was an Icelandic writer, librarian, and museum director who made the first collection of Icelandic folktales.-Career:Jón Árnason was educated at the Latin School in Bessastaðir....

 the first curator of the Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

ic collection, previously kept in Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 museums. The second curator, Sigurður Guðmundsson, advocated the creation of an antiquarian collection, and the museum was called the Antiquarian Collection until 1911.

Before settling at its present location, at Suðurgata 41, 101 Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, in 1950, it was housed in various Reykjavík attics, finally the attic of the National Library building on Hverfisgata (Safnahúsið, now the Culture House, Þjóðmenningarhús) for forty years.

External links

• Official website including information in English