Antiquarium Arborense

The Antiquarium Arborense is Oristano's main museum, housed in a 19th-century palazzo just off the Piazza Roma. The collection spans the full arc of Sardinian prehistory and history: Nuragic bronzes, Phoenician pottery, Punic jewellery, Roman statuary, and an exceptional room of medieval altarpieces from the Arborean kingdom period.

The Nuragic section is particularly strong, with finds from the surrounding Campidano plain and the Sinis Peninsula that illustrate the sophistication of the Bronze Age civilisation that built the island's thousands of nuraghi towers. The Roman section includes a scale model of the ancient city of Tharros, which helps orient a visit to the ruins on the Sinis Peninsula.

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A story
The museum's prize possession is a collection of painted wooden altarpieces from the medieval Arborean period, when Oristano was capital of an independent Sardinian kingdom. These panels are rare survivors — most medieval Sardinian art was destroyed or removed during Spanish rule — and they show a distinctive local style quite separate from mainland Italian painting of the same period.