Like a stranded Viking ship, Gamla Uppsala Museum is located in the middle of the ancient monument area. A characteristic feature is the large window, "Odin's Eye," which opens up the view towards the Royal Mounds. For those looking out from the gallery stairs, it is easy to be transported in thought to times gone by.
The museum was appropriately inaugurated on St. Erik's Day, May 18, 2000, by King Carl XVI Gustav. Architect Carl Nyrén designed the building. He was already known for his designs for both Gottsunda Church and the City Library in Uppsala. The facade's paneling consists of untreated oak from Visingsö. Oaks were once planted there to be used for the navy's ships, and it was punishable by death to cut them down. But now they have been used to form the surface of a building that, in its oval shape, actually resembles a ship. So the basic idea of the oaks' use has still ended up right. The untreated oak wood slowly darkens year by year.
Gamla Uppsala Museum is a living place where guided tours are held daily in various languages. One of its missions is to be a pedagogical center through its school programs. Everything from preschools to high school classes comes here for free visits where they can for a moment try to be a medieval person or perhaps what it was like to live as a Viking. Other offers in the school program include learning more about archaeology, ancient fighting games, and the meeting of Old Norse mythology and Christianity on the site.
As it should, the place and the museum offer exciting meetings between the past and the present. One of these meetings can happen by borrowing a pair of VR glasses (virtual reality) where you can experience what Gamla Uppsala looked like in the 650s AD.
The museum's permanent exhibition shows what has happened on the site over several millennia up to today. One of the obvious highlights is the finds from the Royal Mounds and more recent excavation finds from the work on the train tunnel and the E4 highway. Various interactive aids are used to enrich the knowledge of how the place has emerged from ice and sea masses and become today's cultural and visitor site.
In addition to the given tasks of a museum, the venue is sometimes used for weddings, book launches, lectures, and other events. Two examples of such events are the Vendel Period and Viking Age festivals, which are organized recurringly, where invited history re-enactors perform in period costumes and demonstrate crafts, weapon forging, the way of life and rituals of the time, among much else.