NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM
Museum founded in 1948, exhibiting some 2,100 objects from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman era in five rooms.
This museum, founded in 1948 (Muzeu Arkeologjik Kombëtar), occupies part of the former building of the Albanian Fascist Youth movement, a vast colonnaded building that dominates Mother Teresa Square. It was designed in 1939 by the Italian architect Gherardo Bosio (1903-1941), who was responsible for the urban planning of downtown Tirana. The same building also houses the Institute of Archaeology, the Academy of Sciences and the Rectorate of the University of Tirana. The museum exhibits about 2,100 objects in five rooms covering a period from the Lower Paleolithic to the Ottoman era. Unfortunately, the museography lacks seriousness: not only are the English translations missing, but most of the ancient objects presented as "Illyrian" are in fact Greek. In rooms 3 and 4 devoted to antiquity, note in particular the horse cuirass (3rd century BC) discovered in the Greek city of Antigonia (near Gjirokastra) and the statue of a crouching god of fertility holding a cornucopia (2nd or 3rd century BC). It comes from the site of Amantia (near Vlora) which was then under Greek rule. Do not miss either the statues of the goddesses Artemis-Hecate (3rd century B.C.) and Hera (2nd century B.C.) discovered at Apollonia of Illyria (near Fier) and at Epidamnos (Durrës). These two sites also yielded the beautiful sculpted portraits of the Roman emperors Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius and Caracalla (2nd-3rd centuries AD).
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