Antiquarium Turritano

The Antiquarium Turritano is an archaeological museum in Porto Torres, Sardinia, Italy, situated within the archaeological area of Turris Libisonis, the Roman colony upon which the modern city was built. Inaugurated in 1984, the museum has been managed by the Italian Ministry of Culture since 2014. Its significance lies in its focus on the material culture of Colonia Iulia Turris Libisonis, the only Roman colony in northwest Sardinia to possess a port that maintained direct relations with ancient Ostia, and in its integration with one of the most extensive archaeological areas on the island.

The museum building was constructed between 1971 and 1973 and opened to the public in 1984. At the beginning of the 1980s, maintenance work was carried out, followed by expansion work in the southern section of the ground floor that revealed the structures of a thermal bath complex, including a room with the small pillars that supported the heated floor. In December 2014, management passed to the Italian Ministry of Culture through the Polo museale della Sardegna, which became the Direzione regionale Musei in December 2019. After a closure of two and a half years, the museum reopened in July 2021.

The exhibition is arranged across two floors and is divided into two principal thematic areas. The ground floor displays materials from necropolises uncovered in the urban area, a section devoted to statuary, and an underwater archaeology section. The upper floor houses finds from the central baths, a marble collection, and the municipal collection assembled by Emilio Paglietti between the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The latter spans a broad chronological range and includes objects not all originating from the Porto Torres territory. The collections as a whole cover material from the Nuragic age through the late imperial period, with particular emphasis on the Roman era.

Among the museum's holdings are honorary statues from the first and third centuries A.D., votive objects, inscriptions, cinerary urns, mosaics, and frescoed plasters that attest to the vitality of this commercial city. The necropolis materials include capuchin and box burials and hypogea decorated with pictorial and plastic motifs from sites such as Monte Angellu, Tanca Borgona, and Scoglio Lungo. From the Balai area comes an early Christian polychrome funerary mosaic with dedicatory inscriptions naming the couple Settimia Musa and Dionysus. The King Barbarian's Palace area has yielded a high relief representing Cautopates, fragments of statues, inscribed plates, clay pipes, and lead water pipes. The collection also includes delicate glass unguentaria and marble portraits from the local necropolis.

The museum is located at via Ponte Romano, 99, adjacent to the archaeological area known as the Palazzo del Re Barbaro. The modest, functional modern building is positioned as a gateway to the surrounding open-air ruins, creating a dialogue between past and present. The archaeological area extends to the right bank of the Rio Mannu, where a bridge built at the beginning of the first century A.D. is preserved. The external area includes the central baths, the Pallottino baths,imber the domus of Orpheus, and a Roman road. Visitors can explore thermal facilities and houses rich in polychrome and figured mosaics.