Gondwana – Das Praehistorium

Gondwana – Das Praehistorium stands on the site of the former Reden colliery in Schiffweiler, Saarland. The museum opened in December 2008 and was enlarged in 2013. It is run by Gondwana Praehistorium e.K., whose owner is Matthias Michael Kuhl. The entrance hall features a full-scale skeleton of an Argentinosaurus, rebuilt in Germany after work supervised by Argentine palaeontologist Professor Rodolfo Coria in Patagonia. A light-and-sound show traces the history of the universe from the big bang to the present. The exhibition then moves into a cinema that covers more than eight billion years from the big bang to the emergence of humans. The main galleries guide visitors through 4.5 billion years of Earth history. Life-size ecosystems, animations and audio-visual displays bring extinct creatures back to life. Giant scorpions, primitive dragonflies and dinosaurs appear among recreated natural forces such as floods and meteorite strikes. A second film explains the extinction of the dinosaurs. In 2011 an indoor play area called Gondi’s Dinowelt opened in a former workshop, offering climbing frames, slides, trampolines and dinosaur karts. A 2013 expansion added twelve new themed zones that follow key moments in human history and end with the world’s largest robotic dinosaur show and a 4D animation of the prehistoric giant shark Megalodon. Visitors walk past life-sized models of prehistoric animals in lifelike settings. The Argentinosaurus skeleton towers over the entrance hall. The time-line show uses orchestral music and moving light to mark the march of time. The indoor play area lets children scramble over wooden dinosaur frames and bounce on trampolines. The 2013 halls present scenes from human history with animatronic figures. The museum’s largest attraction is a robotic dinosaur performance accompanied by 4D visuals of Megalodon. The site lies on the edge of the former colliery, linking modern science with the region’s industrial past.