MUSÉE ARCHÉOLOGIQUE D'APOLLONIE D'ILLYRIE
Museum created in 1958 in a superb setting in Pojan, housing around half of the objects from Apollonia of Illyria.
This museum, founded in 1958 (Muzeu Arkeologjik i Apolonisë), is housed in a superb setting within the archaeological site: a wing of the former Byzantine monastery of the Dormition of the Mother of God, founded in the 12th century. It houses around half of the artefacts from Apollonia of Illyria, the rest being kept at the National Archaeological Museum in Tirana and the Fier History Museum. On the second floor, on the left as you enter the monastery, a wooden staircase leads to the gallery, where objects are displayed chronologically and thematically in six rooms, from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. The museum contains finds dating from before the town's foundation and after its abandonment, the site having been occupied by man as early as the Bronze Age (pottery, weapons, jewelry, etc.), then used as a Christian sanctuary (bronze and glass objects). Most of the exhibits, however, are Greek, Illyrian and Roman from the 6th century BC onwards: bronze shields and helmets, black-figure ceramics typical of Corinthian art, bronze and marble figurines, women's jewelry, a sculpted portrait of the emperor Hadrian... The tour continues in the courtyard, where a gallery groups together the most imposing pieces, most of them Roman: statues of figures and divinities, funerary stelae, inscriptions, a lion statue, etc. The museum should continue to be open to the public. It should be noted that the museum should continue to grow, since it is estimated that less than 10% of the site has been excavated.
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