I have to admit that the title for this section is not quite accurate, or at least not complete. A better title might be "The Crown Jewels, and a Lot of Things that Aren’t Crown Jewels". Or more succinctly, "Rosenborg’s Basement". But a basement invokes images of a dark, dingy place filled with forgotten stuff, mostly of negligible value, plus maybe a furnace or a water heater. Rosenborg’s basement isn’t really like this – there might be some appliances of this sort hidden somewhere, but we didn’t notice, as we were busy looking at the fabulously valuable stuff the basement is filled with.

I also have to admit that I’m not that clear on what separates the Crown Jewels from the Things that Aren’t, so I won’t attempt to point out Crown Jewels when they appear, as I stand a pretty good chance of being wrong. But I can promise this: Some of the following things are for-real Crown Jewels. First, we’ll start with some things that definitely aren’t Crown Jewels – some of the royal firearms:


As seen in the upper floors of the castle, the royal family had an affinity for elaborate decorative objects. A preferred material from which to make such objects (and popular throughout Europe, though undoubtedly less so with elephants) was ivory.



Another frequently-used material from which to make valuable decorative objects was fossilized tree resin, otherwise known as amber.

And a king couldn’t drink wine from a jelly glass or Dixie Cup – a kingly vessel such as one of the following was required:


Another type of object of which the royals were fond was an object in which one could store other objects. Here are some of their favorite containers:




And of course there was always room in the castle for random stuff.



Some objects display a Danish Coat of Arms. Different members of the royal family have different coats of arms, but there is generally an elephant to be found somewhere in the display. This symbolizes membership in the Order of the Elephant, Denmark’s highest honorary order, reserved for members of the royal family, selected heads of state, or (rarely) commoners of high accomplishment. Sometimes the Coat of Arms is accompanied by woodwoses, mythical "wild men" who are said to live in forests throughout Europe.

And of course there was quite a bit of jewelry on display. Maybe some of the following are considered Crown Jewels:




At one time Danish monarchs wore or held special royal objects at ceremonial occasions. These objects are collectively known as the royal regalia, and they are not normally worn anymore. They are arranged near or on the casket at a monarch’s funeral, however. The main pieces of the royal regalia are the crown, the scepter, the royal orb and the sword of state. Additional ornamentation was also worn.


There are three crowns on display. The oldest is the Crown of Christian IV, first used at Christian IV’s coronation in 1596. It doesn’t look like it could have been very comfortable. It was last used in 1648 at the coronation of Christian IV’s son, Frederik III. In 1671 Frederik had a new crown made for his son, who was to become Christian V, and this crown is appropriately called the Crown of Christian V. There is a similar crown that was used by queens. It was created in 1731 for use by Sophia Magdalen, the queen of Christian VI.

Emerging from beneath the ground, we blinked and puzzled over what to do with the rest of our last day in Copenhagen. A mental note we had made to ourselves earlier reemerged, and after brief consideration we headed for a bus stop. We were going to Christianshavn and the Our Savior Church.