Type:

Luoghi della cultura; Ente/Istituzione

Category:

Archaeology museums

The Civic Museum was founded on 1st April 1949, together with the "Cesare da Sesto's Artistic and Historical Society". In 1954, with its first archaeological exhibition the museum was officially established. Nowadays the museum is housed in the 19th century town hall building of Sesto Calende and exhibits, in a modern display, archaeological finds of the Golasecca Culture which flourished in North-Western Italy during the last millennium B.C. The objects on display were found in the areas of Golasecca, Sesto Calende and Castelletto sopra Ticino; they are exhibited chronologically and supplied with broad and explicative didactic-type notices, including several illustrations and pictures in order to make them easily and pleasantly understandable. The Golasecca Culture is represented by several funerary objects from different necropolis, suggesting both a high demographic concentration and a diversified, evolved society. The Golasecca Culture has been the commercial and cultural intermediary between the Etruscan world, central Italy and the Transalpine world. The few finds brought to light concerning the inhabited areas relate to common working activities (kilns, querns, weaving tools, etc.) and bear evidence of hut flooring and cobbled paving. Recently, finds belonging to the "Bellini Collection" have been acquired. The museum also displays considerable objects of the roman period and the San Donato Abbey group of pluteus, dating from the early Middle Ages. There is an interesting collection of marine fossils from Cheglio di Taino, which has recently been classified by computer.