The Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae

About this activity

The island of Ischia is a true monument to the past, telling of what it has experienced over the centuries. Numerous populations have passed through here: Pelagians, Phoenicians, Euboeans and then again the Romans, Normans, Angevins up to the Aragonese. It has had several names including Arime, Pithecusae, Aemarium, Aenaria, Iscla up to today's Ischia.

To take a dive into its history, not to be missed is the Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae. It takes its name precisely from Pithecusae, the oldest Greek settlement in Italy. Legend has it that Zeus liberated the island invaded by Cercopes, slaughtering them and turning them into monkeys. At every landing on the island, the screams of monkeys were heard; they then called it Pithecusae, "populated by monkeys." It is located inside Villa Arbusto, built in 1785, home to such notables as the father of modern anarchism Michail Bakunin.

The halls of the museum

The museum is organized into eight rooms where you can admire archaeological artifacts from prehistoric to Roman times, divided according to historical period.

The prehistoric age on Ischia

In Room I, you will find numerous testimonies of the prehistoric Ischitan age, from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age.

The Neolithic

Subject to numerous catastrophic volcanic events, the oldest evidence of human settlement on the island of Ischia dates back to the Neolithic period. Some artifacts have been found in the locality Cilento, just a few meters from the entrance to the Cemetery of Ischia, such as fragments of handmade vessels, terracotta weights for fishing nets, stone tools, knife blades, and splinters left over from toolmaking, flint, and obsidian.

The Bronze Age

On the hill of Castiglione, in Casamicciola, Lacco Ameno, on Monte di Vico and in the Mazzola locality, artifacts dating back to the Bronze Age were found, including ceramic material from the Apennine civilization but also fragments of Mycenaean pottery, the earliest evidence of the presence of the Mycenaean civilization on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea. We can observe vases, bowls, cups, with various decorative motifs, all worked freehand, without the help of the potter's wheel.

The pre-Hellenic Iron Age

During the Iron Age many things changed in the production of objects, such as the shape, decoration, and type of engravings, which were no longer deeply excavated but only lightly scratched before firing. Spindle whorls and other objects for weaving, a widespread activity, were found, then also millstones used for growing wheat, earthenware vessels and stoves, other vessels, cups and bowls, idols, that is, extremely stylized human figures with arms and head represented by discs.

The Greek colony of Pithecusae

In rooms II, III and IV you can observe artifacts from the Greek colony of Pithecusae.

Around 760 B.C. the Greeks landed on Ischia and prospered with trade, metallurgical industry and pottery production. Numerous finds have been unearthed, including mainly objects of the Egyptian-type funerary accompaniment such as ointment jars, amphorae, from the Near East, Carthage, Greece, Spain, Etruria, Apulia and Sardinia, but also painted vases, metal object, antefixes. It was the only site that traded with such a wide geographical scope. The most important Greek evidence on the island is the famous cup imported from Rhodes, the cup of Nestor, found inside a cremation tomb in the necropolis, in a particularly rich burial outfit on which was engraved, in Pithecusae itself, a three-verse epigram alluding to the 'Iliad Homer's.

"Of Nestor--the cup good for drinking. But whoever drinks from this cup, right away that one will be seized with the desire of love for Aphrodite with the beautiful crown."

The Hellenistic Age

Between 450 and 420 B.C. Sabellian peoples established in the Abruzzi-Molise Apennines occupied Campania. Only Neapolis, today's Naples, was saved and Pithecusae was occupied by the Neapolitans, thus remaining a city of Greek civilization. The pottery industry retained its importance, with the production of many products such as tableware pottery, all painted black, and terracotta figurines.

The Roman Age

The Romans also landed on Ischia. Foreseeing the risks they would run on the island, such as eruptions, earthquakes and landslides, they built a smaller settlement than the one in the nearby territory of the Phlegraean Fields, under the name of Aenaria, now a submerged town. On the seabed, the remains of a lead and tin foundry, wall structures, crude pottery, the oldest of which is from the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, anchors, remains of walls decorated with special reliefs, splendid testimonies through which you can also relive the Roman era.