Museo Pigorini

The Museo Nazionale Preistorico Etnografico "Luigi Pigorini" in Rome, located on Piazza Guglielmo Marconi in the EUR district, is an important institution for the study of human prehistory and non-European cultures. The museum, which has been part of the Museo delle Civiltà since 2016, is housed in a building of Italian Rationalist architecture and holds the most important collection on the prehistory of Italy as well as an extensive ethnographic collection. The history of the museum dates back to 1876, when it opened in the Palazzo del Collegio Romano under the direction of Luigi Pigorini. Pigorini turned it into a center for prehistoric archaeology that both coordinated excavations and prepared their findings for scientific study. After his death, the museum was given his name before moving in the 1970s to its current home in the Palazzo delle Scienze.

The prehistory section invites you to experience the development of humankind on the Italian peninsula. Designed as a "hands-on museum," it allows you to touch many of the exhibits, which encourages a tactile experience of history. The exhibition leads chronologically from the Paleolithic through the Neolithic to the early Iron Age. You can view reconstructions of campsites, burial sites, and huts and learn the fundamentals of archaeological research. Particularly noteworthy are finds such as the Neanderthal skull fragments from Guattari Cave and the underwater archaeological discoveries from Lake Bracciano, which offer a detailed look at the way of life of Neolithic settlers.

Alongside this, the ethnographic section presents objects from Africa, the Americas, Oceania, and Asia that document encounters between different cultures. The Oceania collection is considered one of the most significant in Europe and includes pieces from New Guinea, among others. The Asian holdings include valuable items from Japan, China, and India, among them musical instruments and everyday objects. In addition to the exhibits, the museum has an extensive specialized library with around 70,000 volumes, archives of historical documents and photographs, and scientific laboratories responsible for analyzing and conserving the finds.