Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas

The Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas is Sicily's principal archaeological museum, housed in a former Oratorian monastery on Via Bara all'Olivella near the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Italy. The museum was founded in the 19th century from the university's collections and is named after the archaeologist Antonino Salinas, who directed it from 1873. Its collection covers Sicily from prehistory through the Phoenician, Greek and Roman periods. The most celebrated holdings are the metopes from the temples of Selinunte, carved in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, which show mythological scenes such as Perseus and Medusa and the chariot of Hera with Zeus. The museum also displays finds from Himera, including the temple's lion-head water spouts, and Phoenician sarcophagi from Palermo and Motya. Another well-known object is a fragment of the Palermo Stone, an Egyptian royal annal inscribed in the 25th century BCE. A Roman section includes mosaics and the sculpture from Villa Romana sites. The displays are organised mostly by site and period, giving a chronological route through the cloisters and rooms of the monastery. The architecture is an attraction in its own right, with two cloisters, one with a fountain and a garden of palms and papyrus. The museum was closed for several years of restoration and reopened in 2016, since when the arrangement of the collections has been updated, though some sections have remained under renovation. The museum is generally in good condition. It is an essential visit for those who want to understand ancient Sicily, as it brings together material from many sites across the island, and it helps place the Norman monuments of Palermo in a longer history of settlement and conquest.