The Rye area in earlier times
The exhibition about the Rye area in earlier times opened on May 1st 2005. The year 2005 is the 600-year anniversary of the first mention of Gl. Rye in documents about pilgrimage.
In 1405, in the presence of Queen Margrethe I, the wealthy Jens Nielsen Løvenbalk to Aunsbjerg was sentenced to send people on pilgrimage to different holy places in Scandinavia, among them Rye. He was sentenced for the killing of Jens Jensen Brock to Clausholm.
Exactly the extensive pilgrimage explains the wealth of Rye and its importance as a regional centre in the Late Middle Ages.
The exhibition lays the main emphasis on the Middle Ages, not only at Gl. Rye, but also in the whole Rye area, from Låsby to Sdr. Vissing, and tells about local events in this colourful period of Danish history.
The exhibition also deals with the area in pre-historic times, that is, the period after the last Ice Age. The museum has borrowed objects for the exhibition from other museums. For instance, a collection of Stone Age tools is kindly lend to us by the Gudenåmuseet. There are sepulchral urns from the Bronze Age, found near Addit and lend by Horsens Museum. The exhibition contains fine pots from the Iron Age, which belong to Skanderborg Museum, but are now on display in the neighbourhood where they were found.
Fine objects from the monastery of Øm lend by the Monastic Museum of Denmark may be seen in the exhibition. Also on display is renaissance glass produced at nearby Glarbo, where King Frederik II started a large-scale production of both drinking and window glass.
Finally, the skeleton of a woman, named ”Petrine”, is part of the exhibition. Petrine was found during excavations at Galgebakken (Gallows’ Hill) at Gl. Rye and has presumably died under dramatic circumstances in the 17th century. A C-14 dating of the skeleton indicates that she must have died during that period.