Barcelona Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya

The time frame for this archaeology collection of Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya starts with the Palaeolithic period, and there are relics of Greek, Punic, Roman and Visigothic colonisers, up to the early Middle Ages. A massive Roman sarcophagus is carved with scenes of the rape of Persephone, and an immense statue of Aesculapius, the god of medicine, towers over one room of the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya.

A few galleries in the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya are dedicated to the Mallorcan Talayotic cave culture, and there is an exemplary display on the Iberians, the pre-Hellenic, pre-Roman inhabitants of south-eastern Spain. An Iberian skull with a nail driven through it effectively demonstrates a typical method of execution from that time.

The display of the Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya ends with the marvellous, jewel-studded headpiece of a Visigoth king. One of the best-loved pieces in Museu d'Arqueologia de Catalunya, inevitably, is an alarmingly erect Priapus, found during building work in Sants in 1848 and kept under wraps 'for moral reasons' until 1986.

Address

Passeig de Santa Madrona 39-41
Area Montjuic & Poble Sec
Transport Metro Poble Sec .
Telephone 423 65 77
Open 9.30am-7pm Tue-Sat; 10am-2.30pm Sun.
Admission €3; €2.10 reductions; free under-16s.