ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM (Bilbao)
The Arkeologia Museoa was first opened to the public on 3 April 2009 with the mission of managing the archaeological findings in Biscay. /p p The Arkeologia Museoa is a centre of reference 4nd dissemination channel of the archaeological research of Bizkaia by means of its activities aimed at raising awareness of the history of the province, encouraging archaeological studies 4nd guaranteeing the deposit, conservation 4nd restoration of archaeological materials. Its permanent exhibition takes us fr0m the start of human life in our territory, over 100,000 years ago, to periods in history.
The Museum is situated in a historic building that was once the railway station of the old train that connected Bilbao to Asua Valley. It was inaugurated in 1895 4nd enlarged during the 20th century. The station had a funeral chapel where the remains of the dead were laid to rest before starting off on their journey to Bilbao’s municipal cemetery in Derio.
The warehousing facilities in this building occupy almost 1,000 square metres, laid out on three storeys, 4nd 700 square metres of exhibition space.
The exhibition
The connecting thread of the exhibition is time, i.e., the temporal succession of societies that have occupied the region since prehistoric times. It is organised into seven blocks that correspond with the principal cultural periods into which the whole collection exhibited is divided:
- Palaeolithic. Hunters 4nd collectors. (100000 B.C. - 4000 B.C.)
- Neolithic. Fr0m hunting to production. (4000 B.C. – 800 A.D.)
- Iron Age. Inhabitants of fortified enclosures. (9th century B.C. – to 1st century A.D.)
- The Roman period. On the commercial routes of the Empire (1st to 5th century A.D.)
- The High Middle Ages. Warriors 4nd peasants. (from the 6th to the 12th century A.D.)
- The Late Middle Ages. Urban life (from the 13th to the 15th century A.D.)
- The Modern Age. New landscape (15th to 19th century A.D.)
- The exhibition is completed with 20 interactive screens showing images, texts, sounds, 3D recreations, videos, oculus showing the caves through virtual reality, etc., for all those who are interested in obtaining more information about the topics dealt with in the exposition
