Patrimonio culturale dell'Emilia-Romagna

The Museum draws together extensive documentation on the historical development and settlement dynamics of the city of Modena and surrounding areas from prehistoric times to the Middle Ages. The establishment of the Museum in 1871 is directly linked to the intense cultural and political debate on prehistoric research and the role of civic museums in preserving local identities during the profound changes that took place in the years immediately following Italian unification. The ethnological section, with its non-European material, is also closely linked to the birth of the museum and the emergence of comparative anthropology, which contributed greatly to the new discipline of prehistoric archaeology. The Roman lapidarium, located in the western courtyard of the Palazzo dei Musei, features monuments mostly from the large urban necropoles that were located along the main roads. It provides additional information on the demographic and social aspects of the city of Modena during Roman times.

The Museum’s original core collection is the result of research conducted in the second half of the 19th century by Giovanni Canestrini, Carlo Boni, Francesco Coppi, and Arsenio Crespellani on the remains of the terramare settlements, which were hamlets protected by moats and ditches commonly found in the central Po plain during the middle and late Bronze Age.
The collection was subsequently augmented with the extensive material collected by the Modena-born archaeologist Ferdinando Malavolti, especially on the Pescale plateau and at the Carani furnaces, along with important material from recent archaeological digs in the city and nearby areas.
The exhibitions, which were re-arranged in 1990 to reflect their original 19th century order, re-trace the chronological history of the city and its territory: from Palaeolithic stone tools to the first Neolithic potteries found in Fiorano; from the fine bronze objects from the terramare settlements (Gorzano, Montale, Gaggio) to the grave goods from Villanovan burial sites scattered throughout the area (Savignano, Bazzano, Castelfranco, Nonantola); from the Etruscan necropolis of Galassina to the precious decorations of Roman domus from Mutina (the name under which Modena was known during the Roman era) and grave goods from Longobard tombs.
The ethnological section includes material from many geographic areas, which in many cases documents cultures that are now extinct or nearly so. The collections are currently arranged by geographical area, just as they originally were in the 19th century: New Guinea, South America, Africa, Asia, and Pre-Columbian Peru. They recall the era of the great exploratory expeditions, and commemorate the scholars and researchers who helped discover new lands and foreign cultures.
The Roman lapidarium, on the ground floor of the Palazzo dei Musei, displays material from outside the Roman-era city walls, where monumental necropoles were located during the Roman Empire. The burial sites found along the Via Emilia east of the city – such as the funeral altar of the centurion Clodius, the altar of Vetilia Egloge and the monument shaped like a ship’s bow that probably belonged to a high-ranking official of Augustus’ fleet – are of particular importance.