Gotland Museum

Gotland Museum

Gotlands museum
The Gotland Museum logo
Location of the Gotland Museum
Former name	Länsmuseet på Gotland or Gotlands Fornsal
Established	1875 (1875)
Location	Visby, Sweden
Coordinates	Coordinates: 57°38′22.93″N 18°17′32.84″E / 57.6397028°N 18.2924556°E / 57.6397028; 18.2924556
Type	Archaeology museum Local museum Art museum
Key holdings	The Picture stone Hall Spillings Hoard
Collections	Bronze Age Viking Age Middle Ages
Collection size	400,000
Visitors	200,000
Founder	Pehr Arvid Säve
Director	Jenny Westfält (2015)
Historian	Lars Sjösvärd (2015)
Owner	Gotlands Fornvänner Gotland Municipality
Public transit access	Visby harbor
Nearest car park	Visby harbor
Website	gotlandsmuseum.se

The Gotland Museum (Swedish: Gotlands museum) (previously known as Länsmuseet på Gotland or Gotlands Fornsal) in Visby, Sweden, is the county museum of Gotland. It was founded by the Friends of Gotland's Antiquity society in 1875, at the initiative of P. A. Säve. The museum owns a number of houses and farms on Gotland, some of which are used as museums. It also has a publishing house for books on subjects related to the island's heritage.

The museum's collections consists of about 400,000 objects, which are stored in three depositories. The largest of these is the Magasin Visborg outside Visby and since 2014, this storehouse is open to the public.

The collections are divided into these sections:

The objects in the collections have in most cases been donated to the museum by individuals, single items or entire estates. While some of the art has been bought by the museum, the art collection also comprises art from the Brucebo Foundation, the Heritage Society and the Gotland Municipality, held in trust by the museum.

The most prominent permanent exhibitions in the museum are the Picture Stone Hall, Spillings Hoard and 1361 - Battle for Gotland, about the Danish invasion of Gotland in 1361, led by Valdemar Atterdag resulting in the Battle of Mästerby and the Battle of Visby.

The museum was founded in 1875, by the Friends of Gotland's Antiquity society (Gotlands fornvänner) at the initiative of P. A. Säve. The purpose was to collect historic artifacts and everyday objects connected to Gotland as well as documenting immaterial aspects of life on the island.

Through the years, the function of the museum has remained the same. The museum has grown steadily as the collections increased. Houses, farms and other buildings have been left to the museum in wills and through donations, and the number of members in the society have increased from a handful to over 2,400 in 2015.

In 2011, the museum initiated a networking project with other museums in countries around the Baltic Sea.

Pehr Magnus Arvid Säve (19 April 1811 – 20 November 1887) was a Swedish cultural historian. He was born in Roma the son of the provost there, Pehr Säve and his wife Hedvig Lallerius.