biography
| name: |
Thomsen, Christian Jörgensen
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1788–1865)
|
| biography:
| Archaeologist, born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He worked for his wealthy businessman father, and collected antiquities from an early age. In 1816 he was appointed secretary of the Royal Commission for the Preservation of Antiquities, and during his work there he classified specimens into three groups representing chronologically successive ages. He is credited with developing the three-part system of prehistory, named as the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages, described in Ledetraad til Nordisk Oldkyndighed (1836, A Guide to Northern Antiquities). |
|
|
