The Krapina Neanderthal Museum marked European Heritage Days with a rich program

The Krapina Neanderthal Museum, due to its exceptional value and significance, has proudly carried the European Heritage Label for seven years. For this reason, every autumn it actively participates in the celebration of European Heritage Days, an event that celebrates the cultural heritage of all European countries, regions, cities and environments. The event is held under the leadership of the Council of Europe and the European Commission, and the coordinator for activities and events in Croatia is the Ministry of Culture and Media.

This year, the central theme of the event was Living Heritage, which emphasizes the key role of people in its preservation, and the Krapina Museum attracted a large audience with its rich program. Individual visitors had the opportunity to visit the permanent exhibition and the Hušnjakovo site for free, families with children participated in the interactive and creative workshop Fossils in the Museum, and an educational workshop Meet the Neanderthal Menu was organized for school groups of students. On Friday, students had the opportunity to learn all about the diet of Neanderthals, and at the workshop led by Nikolina Ileković and Natalia Mladineo, they made plates with animal motifs using the decoupage technique. Children who participated with their parents in the workshop on Saturday, led by Lorka Lončar Uvodić, learned about the fossils kept by the Krapina Neanderthal Museum. They were shown the mammoth bone as the largest fossil, the cave bear skull and mammoth tooth as the most valuable, nummulites as the smallest, and ammonites, rudists and trilobites as the most interesting fossils. As part of the workshop, they also made plaster casts of fossils, painted tiles on the theme of the Paleozoic sea, and dug up replicas of fossils from the sand. Visitors who toured the Museum for free on Sunday were also able to watch the film Krapina in the Heart, which the children made at an animation workshop led by the multi-award-winning animator Ivana Bošnjak, as part of a program that connected the Museum, the City of Krapina, DND Zabok and the Gokul Association, and which was also shown this fall at the famous international KIKI festival.