Opening hours: Closed Mondays and holidays; open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, 10am-3pm, Wednesday and Friday, noon-6pm.
While the history of the Kalisz Museum goes back to 1907, its holdings had to be reconstructed from scratch after World War II. Reopened in 1947, it was granted the status of a District Museum in 1976 and has since been managing its several divisions, including the Archeological Reservation at Zawodzie, Maria Dabrowska's House in Russow, the Tadeusz Kulisiewicz Gallery in Kalisz, the Palace in Lewkowo (museum of interiors) and the Fryderyk Chopin Chamber of Music in Antonin.
The Museum's central location is home to archeological holdings and items related to the history of the town. Kalisz was first mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy, the Roman geographer who lived in the second century AD, and so it boasts the oldest written record of all Polish towns. The medieval part of Kalisz is particularly interesting for the Basilica of the Assumption of the BVM, one of the world's five centres of St. Joseph's cult, with the painting of the Holy Family, considered miraculous since the seventeenth century.
The archeological holdings are presented through a permanent exhibition entitled The Prehistory of Kalisz and its Surroundings and covering prehistory, ancient times and the early Middle Ages, up to the city's incorporation in the mid-thirteenth century. The exhibition begins with a display of animal (rhinoceros and mammoth) bones from the ice age, discovered in the vicinity of Kalisz; then goes on to present evidence of human activity from the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, including the evidence of cannibalism, a rather widespread practice at the time. The Bronze and Iron Ages are also presented. Finally, the exhibition shows early medieval items from the Archeological Reservation at Kalisz-Zawodzie, where a pagan barrow burial ground was revealed under the remnants of a settlement dating back to the tenth to twelfth century, as was the tomb stone of Prince Mieszko Stary (the Elder), the ruler of Poland who died in 1202.
The local history is further told through The History of Kalisz exhibition. Arranged chronologically, it is broken down into the following sections. The Royal and Ducal Town; The Foreign Rule: When Poland Was Partitioned; The Inter-War Period: 1918-1939; World War II: 1939-1945. There is also a section devoted to the coexistence of various religious denominations, displaying side by side exhibits from catholic and protestant churches as well as the Judaica, Kalisz once being home to one of Poland's oldest Jewish communities.
The Archeological Reservation at Zawodzie, situated at 87-105, Boleslawa Poboznego Street, displays fragments of Kalisz's fortified settlement dating from the tenth to the twelfth century. In summertime the Reservation is open Tuesdays through Sundays, 10.30am-2.30pm; in other seasons, it may be visited by appointment through the District Museum. The Reservation organises Archeological Festivals, where visitors may see the process of manufacturing seals, clay pots and other objects using old techniques.
Muzeum Okręgowe Ziemi Kaliskiej
ul. Kosciuszki 12
62-800 Kalisz
Region: wielkopolskie
Phone: (+48 62) 757 16 08
Fax: (+48 62) 757 16 09
WWW: www.info.kalisz.pl/muzeum
Email: muzeum@kalisz.info; jas@stary.kalisz.pl