The first port of call for naturalists: Altenburg's Mauritianum Natural History Museum houses more than 350,000 exhibits from the fields of geology, palaeontology and zoology. They have been collected over the past 200 years by naturalists between the Weißer Elster, Elbe and Mulde rivers. Birds, butterflies, fossils, rocks - all the exhibits have a special place in this extraordinary Thuringian museum. Admission is free.
The history of the museum dates back to 1817. The museum was named Mauritianum in honor of the nature-loving president of the society, Prince Moritz von Sachsen-Altenburg (Moritz = Latin Mauritius). Alfred and Christian Ludwig Brehm - authors of the book „Brehm's Animal Life“ - are icons of classical German natural science. They were members and founders of the Natural History Society in Altenburg, whose collections have found a home in the Mauritianum.
The Altenburg Rat King is one of the most admired exhibits at the Mauritianum Natural History Museum. Visitors young and old are puzzled: What is it actually? A rat king is the name given to a ball of several rats that are entangled and knotted together by their tails. It used to be assumed that rats were ruled by a king. Later, the name rat king was applied to such balls of dead rats. Fairy tales and legends often tell hair-raising stories about them. In Altenburg, you can marvel at a ball of 32 mummified rats.