Archaeological Museum of Durrës

The Archaeological Museum in the historic seaside city of Durrës, one of Albania’s most visited museums, provides an outstanding and thorough introduction to Albania’s rich history across millennia.

The museum situated near the beach, and the 6th-century Byzantine fortifications, built following the Visigoth invasion of 481, are situated north of the museum. The museum was severely destroyed and robbed during Albania’s 1997 rebellion. The museum’s main collection consists of 3204 items discovered at the adjacent ancient site of Dyrrhachium, which spans the Ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman eras. Roman burial steles and stone sarcophagi, as well as a collection of small busts of Venus, provide witness to the period when Durrs was a center of goddess worship.

The Durrës Archaeological Museum, Albania’s biggest museum, has some of the country’s most valuable prehistoric and ancient artifacts. The museum, which is beautifully positioned along the seafront promenade, takes visitors on a tour through the rich history of both this significant coastal city and the whole nation.

In March of 1951, the Durrës Archaeological Museum opened its doors. These were all the objects unearthed in excavations in the Durrës region up to that point. The museum, on the other hand, has moved many times throughout the years. It is now situated on Taulantia Street, close to Volga, the city’s lovely coastal promenade.

This museum, which opened in 2015, has about 2,000 artifacts dating from the prehistoric period to the fourth century A.D. The stunning big statues in the museum’s entryway are among of the museum’s most spectacular artifacts. From the figure of Gea, goddess of the ground and fertility, discovered in Durrës in 2005, to Roman imperial statues.

This museum will take you through three major historical eras in chronological sequence. The narrative starts in prehistory with the 3000-year-old Dyrrah and continues through the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The Illyrian era, possibly the most intriguing and relevant to Albanian history, falls under three large historical periods.