Archeological Civic Museum of Bologna

Collections

Out on exposition are materials from the Lower Paleolithic Age (almost 700,000 years ago) until the Late Bronze Age (10th century B.C.). The Paleolithic times are documented by items made of flint and chert: bi-facial choppers, points, scrapers, and cores. However, items representing the Mesolithic Age (11,000 years ago) and Neolithic Age (4,500 to 3,000 years ago), are more scarce. With the Bronze Age, finds became more frequent as testified by the numerous ceramic containers, tools made of bone, horn and metal, discovered, together with the casting moulds, in the big villages on the plain during the early half of the second millennium BC. The section is completed by prehistoric materials coming from Italy, Europe, and beyond.

This section of the museum displays material from diggings from the 19th and mid 20th centuries done within the Bolognese area and deals with the reconstruction of the development of the ancient settlement of the Etruscan civilization from its origins (9th century B.C.) to the founding of the city of Felsina (the settlement of Bologna during Etruscan times) between the middle of the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.

The oldest phases of the Etruscan Bologna (Villanovan and Orientalising, from the 9th to the middle of the 6th century B.C.) are illustrated by the vast selection from the approximately 4,000 tomb kits discovered: vases characterised by a bi-conical form (for the deposition of the ashes of the dead), objects for personal use and bronze tools, pottery and bronze vases. Among the many pieces on display one may find: the Benacci askos, a very rare vase typology used to contain the oil for the lanterns and the "closet of Saint Frances" i.e. the deposit of a foundry made of a big vase (dolium) containing more than 14,000 bronze pieces. …

Services

The Museum is endowed with the following: an educational department, a specialized library with a reading lounge, a historic archive (available for consultation with an appointment), a photographic archive (also available for consultation with appointment or by written request), a restoration lab, special access for disabled visitors, rooms for temporary expositions, a conference room, and a bookshop.