Archaeology, traditions and handicrafts: in Sardinia many museums to visit

Museums that grow, museums that change. Some others are about to be founded both in biggest cities and in peripheral localities. The cultural proposal in Sardinia is not deficient. On the contrary, it offers a wide range of opportunities. Here they are, listed by territories.

Arborea

In Oristano, a few steps from the house in which should have lived the Judge Lady Eleonora d’Arborea and from the tower of Mariano II, rises the Antiquarium Arborense, where is found the Archaeological Museum that collects numerous testimonies of all territories, in particular from Tharros: it is ranged over from  nuraghic period to Roman age.

In the premises of the Town hall of Arborea are preserved numerous archaeological findings: approximately 600 pieces that may be dated back to the IV century B.C. up to the VI century A.D., uncovered during the reclamation works of the twenty years of Fascism, especially in locality S’Ungroni.

Barbagie

In Aritzo is worth a visit the Museo Etnografico, that preserves aaround four thousand pieces of the agro pastoral tradition of the territory. However are not lacking even references to other aspects of life that was led in the zone in the passed centuries, as for example the religious artifacts. Subdivided in fields, it shows the objects used in the several productive divisions, included the artistic handicraft (as for example in the weaving). A part of the museum is dedicated to the mountain: we remember the dedicated corner to the ancient production of the “carapigna”, a lemon sorbet prepared with snow, conserved in proper containers in pond or zinc sold (still today) in the festivals in all Sardinia.

Do not miss visiting the Museum of the Mediterranean Masks, opened in Mamoiada: you will find numerous traditional masks coming from all the basin of the Mediterranean Sea. A common thread that connects very different civilization. Mamoiada is the town of the famous Mamuthones, that animate the period of Carnival.
The Museo delle Scienze naturali (the Natural Sciences Museum) of Belvì, inaugurated in 1980 thanks to an initiative of the cultural Association “Amici del Museo” (the Museums' friends), preserves many species of fauna, flora and minerals of Sardinia. FIve sections are opened: paleontology (with fossils of every geologic era), mineralogy (pieces coming from Sardinian's mines), fauna studies (both birds and mammalians), entomology (every kind of insects, in particular butterflies) and herpetology (reptiles, but also marine species).

In Desulo is worth a visit the Museo Etnografico known as Casa Montanàru. This was the house of the Sardinian poet Antioco Casula (1878-1957), famous with the nickname of “Montanàru”, where bnowadays are preserved 1.500 volumes of its personal library, among which one of the first editions of the Promessi Sposi (Betrothe Lovers) with the corrections made by the author Alessandro Manzoni. Moreover it is possible to admire the objects of the local tradition (the economy is mostly agro pastoral, but there is also room for other trades) and the customs of the inhabitants of the territory.

It is simply called Sa domu de tzia Cramela (the aunt Carmela's house) and it is a Museum of the local activities, what proposes Sàdali in one of the most ancient house of the old town center. A cross-section of the agro pastoral life and of the local traditions.

Barigadu

The museum “S’Omo ‘e sa Majarza”, in Bidonì, is definitely original. It guards the texts of ancient legends and stories of witches, devils, sprites, witchcraft and magic (black or white). The museum, realized in the seat of the ex Town hall, collects testimonies from all over Sardinia, since the ancient times: from the dead's divinities of Romans until the dark period of the Inquisition. You find some expanded passages of the book “Malleus Maleficarum” (that means “the witches' hummer”): published in 1486 which has become the guide of the inquisitors in cases of presumed witchcraft. Xilographies of the period from the XIV to the XVI century A.D. make still more fascinating the pathway. In one hall of the museum is shown the cave of a Sardinian witch of the 1500's, tried and tortured between 1596 and 1606 in Sassari. In another room it is possible to admire “su carru de sos mortos” (the wagon of the dead): in the ancient times it was believed that it moved alone forward, groaning, transporting the souls of dead people. The wagon was seen only by the people who would have had to die within the year: they were obviously popular beliefs, but they have resisted to the passage of time until not many decades ago.

The deconsecrated church of San Domenico, in Busachi, hosts the Museo del Lino e del Costume: a permanent exhibition that allows to learn the techniques used in textile handicraft of the territory.

Inside the naturalistic Oasis of Assai, close to the road that connects Austis to Neoneli, it is possible to visit the Museo Ornitologico realized in front of the corps of forest rangers barracks: numerous are the species of birds and fauna of the territory present in the show.

Of great ethnological interest is Sa Dom’e farra (that means “the house of the grain), in Quartu Sant’Elena: a house-museum in typical campidanese style, where are collected many testimonies of the farmer world of the island, from the 1700's till nowadays.

In Monserrato is worth a visit the Museum delle Ferrovie (railways), inaugurated by the Ferrovie della Sardegna in 1996, where it is possible to admire ancient means of transport on tracks and testimonies of the last civilization, that by now lives on the thread of memories: from the stream locomotives to wooden coaches used in the nineteenth century and in the first part of the twentieth century, from the work rooms (a guided path shows the Line, the workshop, the Station and the Warehouse) to the material used in the past, from a photographic show to the exposition of railway plastics with electrical train sets that fascinate and intrigue adults and kids.

From years twenty some towns of Marmilla and Medio Campidano have constituted the tourist Consortium “Sa Corona Arrubia”; (it means “the red crown”) to promote and to increase the value of the archaeological, historical, artistic and cultural heritage of the territory. The Consortium coordinates also the activities of seven museums.

The Museo Rinascimentale “Duca d’Aosta”, in the “Eleonora d’Arborea” Castle in Sanluri, attracts every year, tens of thousands of visitors, that appreciate the relics that go from 1720 up to World War One. In the upper floor, in the ancient throne room of Eleonora, the exhibition of objects regarding the period from the colonial wars to the World War Two. The fortress, after the abolition of the feuds (in 1839) wanted by the king Carlo Alberto di Savoia, knew a period of total abandonment, but in 1927 the count Nino Villa Santa (personal friend of the duke of Aosta) found the way to revive it, transforming it in the Museum. On the father's death (1960), the sons Emanuele Filiberto and Alberto Santa Villa have continued the reviving work, inserting the Museo delle Ceroplastiche (pieces going back to the period between the 1500's and the nineteenth century) and other very interesting collections from historical and cultural point of view.

In Sardara we suggest visiting the Civico Museo archeologico “Villa Abbas”, for a pathway from Pre-history to the Middle Ages, from Nuraghic Civilization to the Castles (such as the Caste of Monreale, visible from the balcony of the same museum), with findings and testimonies of the territory comprised among Sardara, Monastir, Villacidro and Arbus. It is marked also a pathway for blind people. Matched with the Museum, you find also a visit to the Nuraghic sanctuary of Santa Anastasia, in town centre.

In Luras it is possible to visit the Museo Etnografico “Galluras”, a typical gallurese house in granite that preserves more than 4000 objects from the end of 1400 until the first half of the twentieth-century: a cross-section of the agro pastoral life, and of a society that doesn't exist anymore, but that has left a deep mark in the territory. The most precious piece is a hammer in oleaster, used by the “femmina Agabbadora”: a woman that in the ancient times had the task of euthanizing terminal patients and dying people.

Immersed into the green of the island of Caprera the museum Compendium of Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882), defined “hero of the Two Worlds”. The general moved permanently in this island of the Maddalena archipelago in 1855, in search of a little of peace with his family after the many battles fought in Italy and South America. Encircled by pines, his house has been transformed in a museum of great interest, where are conserved the original objects and furnishings of Garibalidi's life, weapons and uniforms, beyond his grave and those of his relatives. Cross-section of the Renaissance, that is much more worth than hundred history books.

The Museo Etnografico del Tappeto (of the carpet), opened in Aggius, shows a great exposition of the works executed by the local craftswomen, that still keep the tradition of this town.

In La Maddalena island you will find the Museo Archeologico Navale “Nino Lamboglia”, where you can admire many findings uncovered in the floor of the archipelago, among which amphorae, oil lamps, anchors, some parts of a roman hull sunk in the end of the II century A.D. and the objects in it contained.

In Bortigiadas you can visit the Museo Mineralogico, with stones and crystals from all around Sardinia.

Gerrei

The town of Armungia is famous for have given birth to Emilio Lussu in 1890 (1890-1975), politician and writer who gave prestige to Sardinia in the past century. In the valuable old town center, that shows eloquently the prevalence of the agro pastoral component of the town, Armungia proposes various reasons for being visited, among which the  Museo Etnografico “S’Omu de is Ainas” (it means “the house of the tools”), located in the ancient palace of the Town hall: preserves an exhibition dedicated to its most illustrious citizen, Emilio Lussu, and a cross-section of farmer and pastoral life of the zone. Interesting also the refurbished Casa del fabbro (blacksmith's hose), a workshop with all tools of the ancient trade.

Logudoro-Meilogu

The Museo Civico Archeologico of Bonorva has been obtained in the premises of a convent, beside the church of Sant' Antonio. It hosts findings of the nuraghic and roman age.
In Ozieri, some years ago, has been inaugurated the Museo Civico Archeologico with the Pre-nuraghic, Nuraghic and Historical sections, and a room that exposes coins from the Punic period up to Savoia Kingdom.
In Ozieri, it is also very interesting the Grixoni source, which was constructed in 1882 for want of a local nobleman that wanted to present it to the townsmen. In the same site existed since 1594 a fountain that supplied the town with water .

Mandrolisai

The medieval town of Atzara hosts the Museo di Arte moderna e contemporanea "Antonio Ortiz Echagüe", in which it is possible to admire pictures of Sardinian and Spanish painters (among which the one to which has been entitled the site) and a photographic show that illustrates the town at the beginning of the 1900's.

In the Museo Archeologico of Teti it is possible to admire the materials uncovered by scholars and investigators in the territory of the mountain Community of Barbagia-Mandrolisai. It particularly preserves the objects found in the nuraghic villages of S' Urbale and Abini:  findings in bronze and ceramic vases, but also weapons and objects for the leather working. Interesting the reconstruction of a nuraghic hut, on the guidelines of those that is possible to visit in S' Urbale.

Marghine-Planargia

In Bosa you should visit the Casa Deriu, a building of the XVIII century that has been transformed in a museum where you find objects and furnishings of the last two centuries, as well as an exposure of paintings.
In Bosa, in what once was the tannery Sanna-Mocci, a private museum has been opened, that exhibits work tools and old photographies, which tell about the activity that has marked the economy of this town for about a century.

Montiferru

In Santu Lussurgiu is worth a visit the Museo della Tecnologia Contadina, where you can admire hundreds of instruments of the agro pastoral world of this territory. The exposure has been prepared in a country house of the 1700's.

Nuorese

In Orani we suggest visiting the museum dedicated to Costantino Nivola. Constructed where once was found the public wash-house of the town, it hosts many works of the sculptor, who was born in Orani and who lived for long time in New York.
In Bitti do not miss to visit the Museo della Civiltà Pastorale e Contadina.

Nurra

In Alghero it is possible to visit the Museo del Corallo, loctaed in liberty villa in the town centre: a window on one of the productive activities that have made famous the Catalan citizen all over the world, especially when the red coral was fished in great amounts in the sea that washes the Nurra. It is not by accident, that from the XIV century the coral appears in the coat of arms of the town. Inside the tower of San Giovanni, in Alghero, is hosted the Museo Virtuale della Storia di Alghero.
In the Antiquarium of Porto Torres, you can admire many findings uncovered by scholars during the diggings in the most ancient part of the town: they refer to the Roman colony of Turris Lybisonis. Other objects instead, are preserved in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico "Sanna" of Sassari.
In the port of Stintino you will find the Museum of the tunny-fishing nets, that illustrates the tuna fishing practiced in the area of the salt pits.

Ogliastra-Salto di Quirra

Sa Domu 'e S' Olìa is the name of the villa-museum of Loceri, refurbished not many years ago, in which it is possible to discover an interesting cross-section of the agro pastoral culture of the territory, in particular all what concern the wildspread cultivation of olive tree and oil production.
If you go through Seui visit the Museo della civiltà contadina e delle attività pastorali e minerarie (the Museum of the paesant civilization and of the pastoral and mining activities).

Peninsula of Sinis

The Civic Museum of Cabras, entitled to Giovanni Marongiu (local politician, former minister of the Republic that gave great impulse to the politics of Southern Italy), preserves many archaeological findings uncovered during the diggings in the territory. Inaugurated in 1997, the museum proposes two different fields dedicated to the sites of Tharros (with the studies progress from the 1800's) and Cuccuru Is Arrius (from Pre-history till Roman age).

Sarcidano

The civic museum of Laconi, inaugurated in 1996, guards many findings (among which many  menhir in trachyte, dated back to 2500-1800 B.C.) uncovered all over the Sarcidano, especially in locality Genna Arrele. Others can be admired in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale (the National Archaeological Museum) of Cagliari. The Sarcidano is surely one of the richest territories in testimonies of the Nuraghic age. Interesting also the parochial museum hosted in the church of Sant' Ambrogio and Sant' Ignazio: it is dedicated to Sant' Ignazio, the Capuchin friar born in this citizen in 1701 and venerated all over Sardinia. There are found many sacred objects and archaeological findings.
The convent of the Padri Scolopi, in Isili, hosts the Museo civico per l’arte del rame (the civic Museum for the art of the copper) dedicated to the huge and valuable production of the main handocraft activity of the country.

Sa Omu Axiu: the house-museum Vargiu, built up at the beginning of the 1800's and preserved in perfect conditions, proposes in Orroli a cross-section of the Sardinia of two centuries ago and the popular traditions of Sarcidano. Rooms and tools speak about handicrafts bread manufacturing, agriculture and food and wine and yarn traditional manufacturing.

Sarrabus 

From the XIX century till the half of the last century, in Castiadas a penal colony was at work. The town all administration nowadays aims at give value to it  by transforming it in a museum-
The Museo Archeologico comunale (the communal Archaeological Museum) of Villasimius proposes an expository pathway divided into four rooms: the room of the sea (reconstruction of the original environments of the findings, going back to the period from the VI century B.C. to the VI century A.D.), the room of the Sanctuary (material recovered in the site of Is Cuccureddus, going back to the period between the VII century B.C. and the V century A.D.), the room of the Territory (the roman phase in the flat of Santa Maria and the necropolis of Cruccuris and Accu Is Traias, between the I and the IV century A.D.) and the room of the wreck (the cargo of a ship sailed from the Baleari in the XV century A.D., that ran around in the Isola dei Cavoli).

Sassarese-Romangia

The Museo Nazionale Archeologico (the archaeological National Museum) of Sassari is entitled to Giovanni Antonio Sanna, politician and manufacturer, who donated the first art works with which was set up this museum site that contains findings of Pre-historic, Phoenician-Punic and Roman periods, (with particular reference to the ancient town of Turris Lybisonis, the current Porto Torres). One room is dedicated to the exposition of paintings from the 1300's to nowadays. The military barracks "the Marmora", instead, hosts the Museo Storico della Brigata Sassari (the historical Museum of the Brigata Sassari), dedicated to the Italian Army Brigata which has fought during  World War one and Two, and today is often called by the UN to defend peace in the territories tortured by the civil and military wars, like Kosovo and Iraq. Among the many who have fought with the Brigata, we remember the writer and Sardinian politician Emilio Lussu. Still in Sassari, the Museo Etnografico (the Ethnographic Museum) "Francisco Bande" offers a rich collection of costumes and objects of the Island's tradition. Inside the cathedral of Saint Nicola there is the Museo del Tesoro (the Museum of the Treasure), with art works, sacred vestments and paraments. Last, in the former soap factory Masedu is located the Centro di esposizioni d'arte della provincia di Sassari (the art expositions centre of the Province of Sassari).

Sulcis-Iglesiente

In Iglesias, inside the Istituto Tecnico Industriale Minerario (the Mining Industrial Technical Institute), it is possible to visit the Museo di Mineralogia e Paleontologia (the Museum of Mineralogy and Paleontology), with the Sardinian most important collection of minerals and many fossils. In the nearby Museo dell' Arte Mineraria (the Museum of the Mining Art) it is possible to admire ancient machineries for the ground drilling and the extracted minerals working.
If you go through Sant' Antioco visit the Antiquarium, a museum constructed beside the eighteenth century fortress in which are preserved findings uncovered in the whole territory of the Sulcis.
In  2000  the Museo Civico dell' Arte Contemporanea was opened, with the Leinardi collection: 120 works of European artists, from the Sixties to the Eighties.
In Santadi are worth a visit the Museo Archeologico civico (the civic archaeological Museum) and the Museo Etnografico (the Ethnographic Museum) "Sa Domu Antiga" (that means "the ancient house").
In the medieval village of Tratalias it is possible to visit the Fair of Sulcis handicraft, a permanent show-market that guards objects of the local tradition.
In Fluminimaggiore, in a refurbished watermill of the 1700's, is hosted the Museo Etnografico (the Ethnographic Museum) "Licheri", that takes the name from the millers family who managed the structure set on the banks of the Rio Mannu. In the museum there is a permanent exhibition of agriculture tools and handicraft activities, like the weaving and the wood working.
In Arbus there is the Museo del coltello sardo, (the Museum of the Sardinian knife), in which are preserved many pieces of value, among which a knife of the Giudicale period, some pieces of the 1700's and what, for along time, has been the largest knife of the world (its blade is 3,50 meters long, and it is very interesting to compare it with only a centimeter shorter models). There are also authentic "jewels" coming from the other centers of excellence of Sardinia (above all Pattada, Gavoi and Dorgali) and even some display windows dedicated to the cutting weapons dated back to the Neolithic Age.

Trexenta

If you go through Senorbì, we suggest visiting the Museo Archeologico Etnografico (the Ethnographic archaeological Museum) Sa Domu Nosta, which is hosted in a beautiful country house of the 1800's. Are exposed objects dated back to the period comprised between the ancient Neolithic and the Middle Age, among which the findings uncovered in the diggings of the necropolis of Monte Luna.