Vučedol Culture Museum

The museum was formally established by a Croatian Government Decree 21 February 2013 as a national museum, the result of many years of efforts in Vučedol. The museum was first opened in 2015.[4]

In 2017, Vučedol Culture Museum was the most visited museum in Slavonia and the 7th most visited museum in Croatia.[3]

The Vučedol archaeological site is located on the right bank of the Danube River, four kilometres downriver from the city of Vukovar, at the spot where an intermittent watercourse in a loess plateau has cut a 25 metre high narrow steep valley that runs to the Danube river. Both sides along this steep pass make up the archaeological site, on the left is the Karasović Vineyard, and on the right is a large complex which includes the Streim Vineyard and the Streim Cornfield. Artificially separated from the pass, a little plateau known as Gradac, which through archeological excavations was confirmed as being the metallurgical and cultural centre of the site. It gives its name to the Vučedol culture that existed in Copper Age Europe.

The first investigations of the site date back to 1897. The location was first inhabited in about 6,000 B.C. at the time of the first farmers, and more or less it was inhabited intensively through the whole of prehistory. The period between 3,350 – 2,300 B.C. was the most intensive period of its existence, when it was a significant centre of human settlement in Europe. Since this was also the time of the early settlements of Troy (Troy I and II), many similarities can be found between the archaeological material from Troy and Vučedol.

Archaeological excavations to date are able to precisely reconstruct the daily life and customs of four cultural phenomena which in that time swept through the sites of the Vučedol culture - Baden, Kostolac, Vučedol and Vinkovci. It was a turbulent time of the immigration of the first Indo-Europeans and their relationship with the natives, the blending of material cultures and religions. Each of the aforementioned settlements had its own characteristics, however the most detailed one able to be reconstructed is the Vučedol one, which also gave its name to this site.

• The first real Indo-European Vučedol house–basket
• The oldest prehistoric carts on four wheels
• The oldest Indo-European calendar based on observation of the winter sky
• Prehistoric foundry in which the first metal production took place
• Production of the first bronze in the world
• The first known saw in the world, created in the framework of the Vučedol culture
• The wealth of form and decoration within Vučedol ceramics – from cups to amphorae – 23 types of vessels
• The pit in situ where Vučedol Dove / Partridge was found
• The ritual burials within settlements – The grave where the oldest fixed date in prehistory can be read
• The ritual burial of the deer – a direct link with the shaman beyond this world
• Five types of shoes, with both right and left versions

Museum floorplan / 19 rooms

Each room has a certain theme. These themes are: geological position of Vučedol, foundation of culture, the arrival of the Indo-Europeans, livestock breeding, farming, hunting and fishing, Vučedol house, weaving and clothing, handicrafts and footwear, metallurgy, ceramics, horizon, calendar, graves, natives, religion, successors and the formation of the Museum.

• Marić, Ivona (September 2016). "Pregled hrvatskih novih muzeja, novih stalnih postava i ostalih zanimljivih projekata iz svijeta muzeja u 2015" [Review of new Croatian museums, new permanent displays and other interesting projects from the museum world in 2015] (PDF). Informatica museologica (in Croatian) (45–46): 24–34. Retrieved 29 October 2018.

• Official website