Catalogue of Collection Items
With their extent and diversity, the collections of the Museum of West Bohemia exceed the region borders, with some of them even crossing the country borders and becoming the world’s cultural heritage. The collection of the oldest firearms is among them. Extraordinarily important also are the complete collections of ceramics, glass and jewellery from the archaeological researches in the ancient town of Pantikapaion and the art collections from the Far East.
Territory: Pilsen area, mostly the area of Pilsen Region
Period: The prehistoric archaeology collection of the Museum of West Bohemia in Pilsen documents the oldest history from Palaeolithic until the origination of the Czech state, i.e. the period beginning approximately 40,000 years BC and ending around 1,000 AD.
Objects: Ceramic, glass, wooden, leather, metal, stone and horn artefacts, human and animal bones and plant remnants
Territory: Pilsen Region predominantly
Period: 10th to 19th century
Objects: Ceramic, metal, wooden, leather, horn and textile artefacts, and ecofacts
Territory: Virtually the whole world
Period: From the ancient world to the present, especially High Middle Ages and the Modern Era.
Objects: Circulation and commemorative coins of all coinage metals; banknotes; treasury notes; vouchers; cheques; lottery tickets; alternative currencies; association, commemorative, sports, enterprise and cap badges; cotillions; pendants; sports prizes; medals; plaques; tokens; metal chips; sacred pieces; orders and decorations; crosses; stars
Territory: Bohemia and Czechoslovakia, Austria and Austro-Hungary, Germany, Central and Western Europe, Russia and USSR, as well as Asia, USA, and Near East
Period: Middle Ages, Early Modern Era and Modern Era up to the present, sub-collections from the 19th to the 20th centuries
Objects: Short and long firearms (muzzle-loaders, breech-loaders, repeater guns, automatic guns) and hand weapons (cutting, stabbing, lance weapons), outfits, uniforms and their parts, caps, helmets, slings and belts, boots, appliqués, epaulettes, gas masks, sighting and observation devices, cartridges)
Territory: Pilsen and Pilsen Region, almost exclusively Western Bohemia, singularities only from other locations
Period: 16th to 19th centuries
Objects: Guild artefacts (chests, writing sets, pots, candlesticks, banners, ferules); daily use things (keys, scales, hangers, furniture, casting means); manacles and torturing devices; metal plates; bells and their parts; weights, seals and stamps of various personalities and corporations (guilds, towns, church, associations); and seal and signet ring imprints
Territory: especially Pilsen and Pilsen Region but also the CR and the whole world
Period: 2nd half of the 19th century up to the present
Objects: Written and printed materials (small prints, documents, printed materials, posters, leaflets, correspondence, manuscripts); an extensive set of historical photographic materials (coloured slides, glass negatives, photographs); pictures (maps and plans); postcards; textiles; minor sculptures; works of art; sound and film records; working tools; musical instruments; minor machines and instruments; typing machines; home appliances; computers
Arts & Crafts Sub-collection
Area: Europe
Period: 1st millennium B.C. to the 21st century
Objects: Glass, ceramics, china, wood, metals, clocks, graphic arts, painting art, jewellery, textile and varia
Ancient Art Sub-collection
Area: Egypt, Greece, Roman Empire
Period: 1st millennium B.C. to the 3rd century A.D.
Objects: Glass, ceramics, metals, graphic art especially from ancient Pantikapaion (Kerch)
Oriental Sub-collection
Period: 12th to 20th centuries
Objects: Ceramics, china, textile, metals, varnishes
Territory: Pilsen, Pilsen Region, West Bohemia
Period: predominantly from the 18th to the 20th centuries, occasionally the 14th and the 15th centuries
Objects: Glass, ceramics, china, agricultural tools, craftsman’s tools, furniture, paintings, metal and wooden handiworks, folk costumes, textile, books and documents, photographs, negatives, toys, puppets, music, woodcuts
Territory: Czech Republic, Europe (Spain, Germany, France, Romania, Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, Sweden), Canada, USA, China, Bolivia, Argentina
Period: Palaeozoic, Tertiary and Quaternary
Objects: Most relevant groups: trilobites, conularia, graptolites, brachiopods, fossil plants, bones, petrified plants, Palaeozoic vertebrates and insects
Complete relevant collections by: Kordule, Prof B. Erdtmann, Boušek, Vokáč, and Vaněk
Territory: Czech Republic - predominantly West Bohemia, Europe, exceptionally Asia and America
Period: First collection from 1848-1905 (L. Čelakovský), extended continually since then
Objects: Herbarium items of vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and fungi; herbarium items of underground plant organs; pictures of fungi
Territory: West Bohemia
Period: From the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (J. Tykač) up to the present
Objects: A collection of vertebrates with focus on birds and mammals
Area: The collection consists predominantly of items from West Bohemia but also from the whole territory of former Czechoslovakia, Europe, as well as tropical butterflies and beetles to a lesser extent.
Period: From 1837 up to now
Objects: The collection includes more than 100,000 invertebrates, mostly in great collections of butterflies (by Tykač, Skala, Fraj, etc.), beetles (by Doležal, Maidl, etc.), and also relatively extensive collections of fleas and spiders.
Books
Territory: Europa, Asia
Period: From the 14th century up to the present
Objects: Manuscripts, incunabula, old prints, 19th century prints, manuscript and printing fragments, maps, art book bindings, bibliophilic prints, ex libris, and other objects of book culture
Documents and Printings
Territory: ilsen Region, with the regions of Cheb, Karlovy Vary and Sokolov being included in the years 1972-1990
Period: From the 19th century up to the present, currently being completed with contemporary production
Objects: Specialized monographs; brochures; production of regional printing works and publishers; annual reports of schools and associations of Pilsen; materials of the chamber of commerce and trade; bibliophilic prints of the literary production of Pilsen from the 1st half of the 20th century; editorial works of regional museums and galleries
The collection of glass negatives of the Ethnographic Museum of Pilsen Region comprises more than 26 thousand items related locally to the City of Pilsen, the wider vicinity of Pilsen, and to a lesser extent also to other towns and villages of current Pilsen Region. This extensive collection documents, among other things, the everyday life of people of the capital of West Bohemia, town festivities, urbanistic changes, and the architecture of the rural areas, as well as the individual parts of the folk costume of Pilsen.
Since 2016, the collection has been in the process of systematic digitization and gradual making of the collection available to the public within a separate internet database.
