The mammoth hunters
Moravia 29,000 years back — the hall before history.
Jan Sapák — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jan Sapák — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jan Sapák — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jan Sapák — CC BY-SA 4.0
Czechia's second museum in age and size (1817): the Moravian Museum in the Dietrichstein Palace over the Vegetable Market guards six million pieces — its star the old world's first lady: the Venus of Věstonice, the fired-clay female figurine of 29,000 years, humanity's oldest ceramic anywhere and Moravia its home (the original shows from the vault on occasions — the hall telling of the mammoth hunters who made her). The wings are the region's encyclopedia: karst geology and its caves, medieval Moravia's life, and the family-beloved traditional nature halls — and the Dietrichstein Palace itself has a rear terrace view over the market worth the climb. Its neighbour the Bishop's Court is its smaller branch with the marvellous microscopic 'world of the cell' — tickets bundle across branches: ninety minutes serves the main palace, a rainy day seats both.
Moravia 29,000 years back — the hall before history.
Baroque over the market — the building as first exhibit.
Zelný trh 8, 659 37 Brno
Diocesan Museum, BrnoThe sacred art museum of the Brno diocese, on Petrov hill beside the cathedral t1 minute walk4.5
Cathedral of St Peter and Paul'Petrov' on its hill: Brno's cathedral with 84-metre Neo-Gothic twin spires (1901 minute walk4.9
Holy Trinity Column, BrnoA baroque column on the vegetable market in old central Brno, raised in the earl1 minute walk4.6
The Capuchin Crypt'As you are, we were — as we are, you will be': the crypt's famous greeting at i1 minute walk4.7
The Labyrinth under the Vegetable MarketA city beneath the city: the Vegetable Market, trading since the thirteenth cent2 minutes walk4.3Found 1925 in a mammoth-hunter camp near Dolní Věstonice south of Brno: an abstracted female form of deliberately fired clay — meaning humans invented the technology of ceramics here fifteen millennia before its supposed dawn, and for art, not pots. Literally priceless (foreign loans banned) — and a child's fingerprint on her back a beloved riddle: who touched her wet, 29,000 years ago?