The Archaeological section
The Sulmona Archaeological Museum is one of the largest in the region and boasts an extraordinary collection of artefacts dating back from Prehistory to the Middle Ages.
Divided into three rooms, it exhibits the prehistoric-Italic section on the ground floor, the Roman section on the first floor, and again on the ground floor the Hall of Arianna, a museal archaeological site. A number of exhibits of considerable historical interest, mostly state-owned or from the Civic Collection, stand out among the materials on display, thus attracting scholars and specialists.
The museum exhibition was conceived as a view of the past of the Peligna area mediated through a large zoom lens: the wide panoramic view, including part of the highlands, gradually narrows down to the settlement structure of the valley related to the municipium of Sulmo, and then goes on to a closer look at the ancient city to finally end up with a visit of the remains of a single domus.
The museum section on the ground floor of the palace is defined as prehistoric, protohistoric and Italic due to the very broad chronological span of the exhibits: from the first lithic tools of 500,000 years ago to pieces of 2000 years ago, on the threshold of the Roman imperial age.
At the entrance, the Tree of the Past alludes to the contemporaneity of several seasons in our era: the broken roots, the trunk still presents in our mental landscape, the branches pointing towards a future to be built. It is a tree that was burnt by lightning on Mount Morrone, which the Ancients would have considered sacred because it was touched by the sky, and in the Museum, with the reconstructed hearth at its base, it is meant to introduce us to ancient landscapes and environments of life. The historic moments are highlighted by The Doors of Time painted on canvases, which are placed along the route to identify, rather than separate, the different areas of the exhibition.
The visitor route can be enjoyed in two different ways: the first one, which is arranged along the display cases and panels on the left, is faster, as it allows to skim the exhibits and have a general understanding of the major historical phases; the second is more focused on typological insights and contexts of origin and is arranged in the areas behind the showcases.
Each area is represented by a single artefact or by the materials contained in the tower display cases placed in front of the direction of the visit. The panels placed to the side graphically represent the phases of settlement of the territory: when seen from the side, they allow us to understand how the settlements, which were initially placed on the highlands and then spread along the rivers and roads, were finally concentrated in the Conca Peligna plain.
The museum exhibition is based on criteria related to chronology and context of origin, extending from the territory of Sulmona and the Conca Peligna to the highlands of Piano di Navelli and Piano delle Cinquemiglia. The layout was designed in the traditional way, respecting the valuable spaces of the monumental building, alternating display cases and explanatory panels, but also adding architectural reconstructions and stratigraphic deposits.