Museu de Arqueologia (National Museum of Archaeology)

The National Museum of Archaeology was founded in 1893 by archaeologist José Leite de Vasconcelos and has occupied the eastern wing of Jerónimos Monastery, built for the monastery's former dormitory and refectory, since 1903. Its collection spans Portuguese prehistory through the Roman and Moorish periods, with particular strength in Iron Age gold jewelry, including torques and bracelets from sites across the Alentejo and Beira regions, and one of the largest collections of Roman mosaics and inscriptions from Roman-era Lusitania. A dedicated Egyptian collection, one of the largest in Portugal, includes sarcophagi, funerary objects, and amulets acquired through 19th and early 20th-century donations and excavations. The museum's galleries are organized chronologically, moving from Paleolithic stone tools through Neolithic megalithic finds, Bronze and Iron Age metalwork, and Roman-period material culture, with a numismatics room displaying coinage from antiquity through the medieval period. Because the museum shares the monastery building with the Maritime Museum and the active church, its exhibition space is more compact than its collection size would suggest, and a portion of the holdings remains in storage or on rotating display. The museum underwent renovation of several galleries in the 2010s to improve display cases and lighting, and ongoing conservation work continues on fragile textile and metal pieces from its Iron Age holdings. As the main repository for archaeological finds excavated across mainland Portugal, the museum plays a central role in Portuguese heritage research and regularly receives newly excavated material from ongoing digs.