Sassari's premier museum, housed in a grand Palladian villa, boasts a comprehensive archaeological collection and an ethnographical section dedicated to Sardinian folk art. The highlight is the nuraghic bronzeware, including weapons, bracelets, votive boats and figurines depicting humans and animals.
Exhibits are displayed in chronologically ordered rooms, starting with the Sala Preistorica, which showcases the island’s very earliest Stone Age and neolithic finds. In this and the next room, dedicated to finds from the 3rd-century BC temple of Monte d’Accoddi, you’ll find an array of fossils, pottery fragments and bone tools.
Beyond these, the museum opens up in a series of displays dedicated to megalithic tombs and domus de janas (fairy houses). Look out for the sophisticated bronzeware, including axe heads and similar tools, jewellery and bronzetti (bronze figurines).
The next room is given over to the Phoenician and Carthaginian eras with some exquisite pottery, gold jewellery and masks. Continuing on, the Roman collection is mostly made up of ceramics and oil burners but there are also some statues and a sprinkling of coins, jewellery and household objects. Off to one side lies a stash of heavy Roman anchors.
The separate ethnographic section has a small collection of Sardinian folk art plus an eclectic array of carpets, saddlebags, embroidered clothes and curious terracotta hot-water bottles.
