Greenland National Museum

The Greenland National Museum near Nuuk's old harbour is one of the finest small museums in the Arctic. The collection covers 4,500 years of human habitation in Greenland: the Pre-Dorset and Dorset cultures, the Norse settlement of the tenth to fifteenth centuries, Inuit culture across the same period and into the present, and the Danish colonial history from 1721 onward. The exhibits are well presented in both Greenlandic and Danish, with English labels.

The star exhibit is the Qilakitsoq mummies — eight freeze-dried Inuit individuals from the fifteenth century, found naturally preserved in rock crevices. The display is handled with appropriate restraint: the human remains are visible but the presentation respects their cultural significance to the Greenlandic Inuit community. Allow two hours for a thorough visit. Entry fee; check current opening hours at the museum website.

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The Qilakitsoq mummies — eight naturally freeze-dried Inuit individuals found in a rock crevice near Uummannaq in 1972 — are the museum's most extraordinary exhibit. The bodies, dating to around 1475 CE, were preserved by a combination of cold, dry air, and the position of the crevice, which prevented ice from forming around them. The group includes a six-month-old infant and a child who appears to have had Down syndrome, making it the oldest known individual with this condition. Their survival for five centuries in near-perfect condition is the result of geological accident.

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