Located on the ground floor of Palazzo Ingrassia, the Museum of Archaeology houses a rich collection of finds dating back to prehistoric and protohistoric up to the Late Ancient and Medieval. The history of the foundation of the Museum dates back to 28 March 1898 when Paolo Orsi, then Director of the Royal Archaeological Museum of Syracuse, told the Rector of the Royal University of Catania, to have donated to the nascent University Cabinet of Archaeology, ten finds from the excavations of Megara Hyblae.
In 1915 Orsi was in contact with Guido Libertini, a promising and brilliant scholar who attended the Italian Archaeological School of Athens as a student. From the 1920s Libertini began to buy finds that would later form the museum’s present collection.
Realized thanks to the Project Catania - Lecce (2003). It was Libertini’s particular interest in ancient centuripine artefacts that today we can admire 78 fakes in the last room of the museum, produced with such mastery by the forgers of Centuripe (province of Enna) to fool even the experts. The museum is located on the ground floor of the nineteenth-century Palazzo Ingrassia, the first Institute of Anatomy, now home to the Archaeology and Antiquities Sciences section of the Department of Humanities.
Address: Giardino di via Biblioteca
Phone Number: +39 095 7102 767
Email: info@officineculturali.net
Web site: https://www.unict.it/it/terza-missione/musei/museo-di-archeologia
Ticket price: Free admission
Guided tours for groups by appointment; educational activities for schools
Complete accessibility