Marsala's finest treasure is the partially reconstructed remains of a Carthaginian liburna (warship) sunk off the Egadi Islands during the First Punic War. Displayed alongside objects from its cargo, the ship's bare bones provide the only remaining physical evidence of the Phoenicians' seafaring superiority in the 3rd century BC, offering a glimpse of a civilisation extinguished by the Romans.
Among the objects found on board the ship and displayed here are ropes, cooking pots, corks from amphorae, a brush, olive stones, a sailor's wooden button and even a stash of cannabis. In an adjacent room are other regional archaeological artefacts including a marble statue known as La venere di lilybaeum (The Venus of Lilybaeum) and some mosaics from the 3rd and 5th centuries AD.
In early 2013 the museum was expanded to include the adjacent Insula Romana , an archaeological site that encompasses the remains of a 3rd-century Roman villa and a splendidly preserved Decumanus Maximus (Roman ceremonial road) paved with giant stones.
