Museum of Almería, Almería, Spain

The Museum of Almería maintains the largest collection of archaeological remains in Almería. In 2006 the museum moved to a new building designed by Ignacio García Pedrosa and Ángela García de Paredes.

The permanent exhibition is located on the first and second floors of the building and they focus mainly on the hunters' and foragers' society. On the second floor, is a metal structure in the middle of the room called the Circle of Life. Surrounding it can be found materials that teach us about trade and war of the Millares society. There are also objects related to the daily life of the settlement. The Circle of Death display, with the support of a video projection, shadows and sound, demonstrates much about the collective use of the graves and the ritual sequence carried out with each new burial.

On the second floor is an interesting layout of consecutive walls progressing from the bottom to the top, with the intention of showing how the society lived on the hillsides through their terraced homes and landscapes, especially in Fuente-Álamo, Cuevas del Almanzora, Almería. The area includes small sub-rooms with glass cases containing big vessels, bronze weapons, silver and gold objects and ceramics among other remains.

On the third floor can be found a long term display which currently has a large collection of Roman and Andalusian pieces. Of note is the beautiful sculpture which is installed on a large fragment of mosaic. This is the god Bacchus, found in a Roman villa excavated in the town of Chirivel, in the northern part of Almería. In this room can also be found other objects related to the large Roman influence in the Iberian Peninsula, specifically in Almería. One can also appreciate here some Andalusian art which is represented by a large collection of Muslim tombstones, of which Almería was the leading production center. The big cube that occupies the center of the room holds cabinets inside which are dedicated to the caliphate and hold ceramics, toys, coins, and the like.

Museums in Spain

User Reviews

Daniel Kmet (3 years ago)
Lovely well presented artifacts. Well worth a few hours visit tonlearn more about local history dating back millenia.

The Pilot (3 years ago)
Very interesting expo about human history in Iberia

TheLastCasul (3 years ago)
Small museum, can be visited un an hour. Most if the collection os from the neolithic archaeological sites in the province

Lucija pečnik (4 years ago)
Free entrance, informations in english, worth visiting

Barbara (4 years ago)
You need approximately two hours to check everything in the object. It's a modern and big museum with archeological exposition. Full of examples of burials and everyday life of people in past. In some moments informations are very brutal how life of our ancestors looked like but it's only an advantage.

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Monte d'Accoddi

Monte d"Accoddi is a Neolithic archaeological site in northern Sardinia, located in the territory of Sassari. The site consists of a massive raised stone platform thought to have been an altar. It was constructed by the Ozieri culture or earlier, with the oldest parts dated to around 4,000–3,650 BC.

The site was discovered in 1954 in a field owned by the Segni family. No chambers or entrances to the mound have been found, leading to the presumption it was an altar, a temple or a step pyramid. It may have also served an observational function, as its square plan is coordinated with the cardinal points of the compass.

The initial Ozieri structure was abandoned or destroyed around 3000 BC, with traces of fire found in the archeological evidence. Around 2800 BC the remains of the original structure were completely covered with a layered mixture of earth and stone, and large blocks of limestone were then applied to establish a second platform, truncated by a step pyramid (36 m × 29 m, about 10 m in height), accessible by means of a second ramp, 42 m long, built over the older one. This second temple resembles contemporary Mesopotamian ziggurats, and is attributed to the Abealzu-Filigosa culture.

Archeological excavations from the chalcolithic Abealzu-Filigosa layers indicate the Monte d"Accoddi was used for animal sacrifice, with the remains of sheep, cattle, and swine recovered in near equal proportions. It is among the earliest known sacrificial sites in Western Europe.

The site appears to have been abandoned again around 1800 BC, at the onset of the Nuragic age.

The monument was partially reconstructed during the 1980s. It is open to the public and accessible by the old route of SS131 highway, near the hamlet of Ottava. It is 14,9 km from Sassari and 45 km from Alghero. There is no public transportation to the site. The opening times vary throughout the year.

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