Museo Nazionale Archeologico

The National Archaeological Museum of Cerveteri (Museo Nazionale Archeologico Cerite) is an archaeological museum located in Cerveteri, within the Metropolitan City of Rome in northern Lazio, Italy. Dedicated primarily to Etruscan art and artifacts, the institution holds material excavated from the necropolises of the ancient Etruscan city of Caere, most notably the Banditaccia necropolis. The museum is housed in the Ruspoli Castle, situated in the historic center of the city overlooking Piazza Santa Maria, and is named after Princess Claudia Ruspoli.

The museum was established in 1967 to preserve and display the local Etruscan heritage. In December 2014, management of the institution was transferred to the Italian Ministry of Culture, operating through the Polo Museale del Lazio, which subsequently became the Regional Museum Directorate in December 2019. A major milestone in the museum's history occurred in 2015, when it received two significant repatriated antiquities, the Euphronios Krater and Euphronios Kylix, permanently relocating these masterpieces to Cerveteri after their initial placement in the National Etruscan Museum at the Villa Giulia in Rome.

Structured across two levels, the museum's collections feature thematic displays drawn from the numerous necropolises of ancient Caere. The exhibits cover a broad chronological span, including Villanovan period materials from the Sorbo burial ground and Hellenistic period finds from the Tasmie tomb and the Tomb of the Sarcophagi in Banditaccia. The holdings encompass a variety of Etruscan funerary goods, such as bucchero ceramics, amphorae, funerary vases, and figurative sarcophagus lids, which are displayed either as original artifacts or reproductions. Significant pieces from these same archaeological areas are also held by the National Etruscan Museum at the Villa Giulia in Rome and the Louvre in Paris.

The most celebrated works in the museum are the Euphronios Krater and the Euphronios Kylix, two Attic red-figure pottery pieces representing the finest Athenian ceramic production. Both vases were originally stolen during illegal excavations in the Cerveteri area and smuggled abroad, where they were prominently exhibited for years, the Krater at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Kylix at the Getty Villa in Malibu. After their return to the Italian state in 2008, the two masterpieces were definitively assigned to the Cerveteri museum, becoming signature works of the collection.

The museum is housed in the Ruspoli Castle, a historic structure located on the site of the acropolis of the ancient Etruscan city of Caere. Positioned in the historic center of Cerveteri, the castle overlooks Piazza Santa Maria and provides the architectural setting for the institution's two-level exhibition layout.

The museum is located in Cerveteri, Italy, within the Metropolitan City of Rome. It is operated by the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Regional Museum Directorate, the successor to the Polo Museale del Lazio. The institution functions as the primary archaeological museum for the Cerveteri area, serving both to conserve local Etruscan heritage and to present it to the public within the historic Ruspoli Castle.