The Kernavė Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve

Contacts
Address: Kerniaus 4 a., Kernavė, LT-19172 Širvintų rajonas.
Tel. (+370 ~ 382) 47 385.
Fax (+370 ~ 382) 47 391.
E-mail: direkcija@kernave.org, reklama@kernave.org  
http://www.kernave.org/
Director – Saulius Vadišis.

Information for Visitor
From October, 2005 the exposition of the Archaeological and Historical Museum of Kernavė is closed. The building of museum is under the reconstruction. Renovated exposition would-be open in 2010. For further information please visit www.kernave.org.
We invite you to visit Cultural Reserve of Kernavė – unique complex of archeological and historical recources. 
Excursions in the territory of Reserve are arranged from 10.00 to 17.30 every day, except Sunday and Monday.

Information and booking of excursions:
in the office of the Administration of the Reserve (Kerniaus 4a, Kernavė), or by phone (+370 382) 47 385, e-mail muziejus@kernave.org.

History of the Museum
On September 23, 1928, a teacher, J. Šiaučiūnas, came to Kernavė. On September 14, 1929, the new primary school in Kernavė was opened. Its pupils, under the guidance of J. Šiaučiūnas, started gathering material for the future museum during excursions. In 1930 Father Nikodemas Švogžlys-Milžinas, known as an active ethnographer, publicist, and propagator of Lithuanian history, was appointed to Kernavė. He was a quite active supporter of the teacher’s idea of the Kernavė museum, and asked locals to bring various antiquities for the museum.
Later, an exhibition of the first exhibits was organized, to which people from the neighborhood were invited. The people were told about the past of Kernavė, about the value of the exhibits. They were asked to look for and bring old things. This aroused people’s interest, and the number of exhibits grew. The school principal, Šiaučiūnas, on October 28, 1930, applied to the inspector of primary schools of the second district of Ukmergė to open museum on the anniversary of Vytautas the Great: “We want to take advantage of the convenient situation, to relate the awakening national consciousness among the inhabitants of Kernavė to the spirit of Vytautas the Great, and to open the museum by mounting on the wall of the school the medallion of Vytautas the Great”.
On December 28, 1930, the museum was inaugurated in one of the classes of the primary school.