Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae: A Museum of Greek and Roman Ischia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.3
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Classical
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Classical
- Civilizations
- Ancient Greek, Roman
- Site type
- Museum
On this page13 sections
History
The Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae is a museum in Lacco Ameno, Italy, devoted chiefly to Pithekoussai, an early Greek colonial settlement founded by Greek colonists on Ischia around 770 BC, during the second quarter of the eighth century BC. Its collections trace the island’s history from prehistory through the Roman period, with particular importance attached to the archaeological evidence for Pithekoussai and the early Greek presence in the central Mediterranean.
Foundation and development
An earlier museum was established in 1947 by the archaeologist Giorgio Buchner and the Swiss volcanologist Alfred Rittmann. Initially known as the Museum of the Island of Ischia, it brought together material illustrating the island’s past. Excavations directed by Buchner and his team from 1952 onward greatly expanded the archaeological record, and finds from those investigations were later combined with the earlier collections to create the Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae.
The present museum was officially inaugurated on 17 April 1999. The ceremony included prominent scholars such as the British archaeologist Sir John Boardman and Alain Pasquier, chief curator of the Louvre’s department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities. The museum consequently presents both the long history of Ischia and the particular development of Pithekoussai through its excavated objects.
Villa Arbusto and the museum’s later history
The museum’s headquarters became Villa Arbusto after the property passed to the Municipality of Lacco Ameno following the death of Angelo Rizzoli. Contributions from the province and region supported its use as a museum. In 2015, financial difficulties affecting the municipality led to a proposal to sell municipal properties, including Villa Arbusto. The proposal placed the museum’s continued accommodation in the complex in question, although the museum remained publicly accessible in 2019.
About 10,000 objects are inventoried in the collections. Greek material from Pithekoussai forms their principal body, while Roman-period finds provide evidence for a later phase of island history. Roman remains from Ischia are less numerous in relation to the Greek material because settlement on the island was modest and volcanic eruptions continued to affect it.
Remains
The museum occupies the first floor of the principal building in the Villa Arbusto complex. Its approximately 150-square-metre display area is divided into eight rooms, where artefacts from settlements, cemeteries, sanctuaries, and industrial activity present the archaeological history of Ischia.
Greek settlement and burial finds
San Montano necropolis
Many vessels and other objects come from the necropolis, or cemetery, in the valley of San Montano, now within Lacco Ameno. The burial ground was used from the second half of the eighth century BC for almost a thousand years. Its grave goods help explain the material culture of Pithekoussai across a long period, while the museum’s wider collection preserves artefacts associated with the early Greek settlement.
The Nestor Cup
The best-known object is the Nestor Cup of Ischia, dated to approximately 725–720 BC. Three lines of an epigram, a short poetic inscription, are incised on the vessel in the Euboean alphabet, a Greek alphabetic tradition used by early Greek communities in the central Mediterranean. The text refers to the cup of Nestor, a character in the Iliad, the ancient Greek epic traditionally attributed to Homer. The vessel is among the earliest datable examples of Greek alphabetic writing.
Monte di Vico pottery
Terracotta objects from the nearby acropolis of Monte di Vico, an elevated area of the settlement, include black-painted tableware of the Campana A type. This Hellenistic ceramic ware was traded across much of the Mediterranean and adds evidence of the settlement’s contacts and material culture to the museum’s displays.
Amphorae and their uses
The collections include a substantial group of ancient amphorae. These large, usually two-handled vessels were used at Pithekoussai to store and transport products including oil, olives, and wine. Excavations also show that amphorae served as burial urns for children, demonstrating that the same vessel form could have both economic and funerary uses.
Roman-period material
Sanctuary of the Nymphs at Nitrodi
Several marble votive reliefs, carved images offered to a deity, date from the first century BC to the third century AD. They came from the Sanctuary of the Nymphs at Nitrodi, which stood beside a spring near Barano d’Ischia. Farmers discovered the sanctuary in 1759, and some of its finds are also exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
Industrial remains
The Roman collection also contains several lead and tin ingots from a nearby foundry that is now submerged. These objects extend the museum’s presentation beyond settlement and religious activity to include evidence for metalworking during the Roman period.
Villa Arbusto
Villa Arbusto was built in 1785 by Don Carlo Acquaviva, Duke of Atri, on a farm estate known as l’Arbusto. After the male Acquaviva line became extinct in 1805, the property passed through several owners. Angelo Rizzoli acquired it in 1952, and after his death it passed to the Municipality of Lacco Ameno for use as the museum’s headquarters.
