Don't miss the reinvented Moesgård Museum, 10km south of the city. It reopened in October 2014 in a spectacularly designed, award-winning modern space, next door to the manor house that once accommodated its excellent prehistory exhibits. The museum's star attraction is the 2000-year-old Grauballe Man , whose astonishingly well-preserved body was found in 1952 in the village of Grauballe, 35km west of Aarhus.
The superb display on the Grauballe Man is part history lesson, part CSI: Crime Scene Investigation episode. Was he a sacrifice to Iron Age fertility gods, an executed prisoner, or simply a victim of murder? Either way, the broken leg and the gaping neck wound suggest his death, sometime around 290 BC (give or take 50 years), was a violent one. His body and skin, tanned and preserved by the unique chemical and biological qualities of the peat bog in which he was found, are remarkably intact, right down to his hair and fingernails.
Aside from the Grauballe Man, the museum brings various eras (from the Stone Age to the Viking era) to life with well-designed archaeological and ethnographic displays. Bus 18 runs here frequently; with your own wheels, it’s a lovely drive – take Strandvejen south, then Oddervej, and follow the signs.
