National Archaeological Museum (Tirana)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

National Archaeological Museum, Tirana

The National Archaeological Museum in Tirana, Albania, opened on 1 November 1948. It was the first museum founded in the country after World War II and serves as Albania’s main archaeology museum. The museum is located near Mother Teresa Square, just east of it, close to the University of Tirana. It is affiliated with the Institute of Archaeology, part of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

Collections and research

The museum holds more than 2,000 objects spanning from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages and the Ottoman period. Highlights include ancient jewelry, Roman statues, and large clay pots decorated with shellfish. The collection covers a time from the Stone Age (about 100,000–2000 BC) through the Bronze and Iron Ages (2000–800 BC), the beginnings of Illyrian civilization (around 1000 BC), Illyrian antiquity (1000 BC–100 AD), the Roman and Byzantine periods (100–600 AD), and Albania in the Middle Ages and under Ottoman rule up to 1912.

Activities and connections

The museum conducts archaeological expeditions across Albania and is the parent institution of several other museums, including the Durrës Archaeological Museum. It also houses a library with about 7,200 volumes.