Museo Archeologico Baglio Anselmi

Archaeological museum housing the Punic warship found in the Stagnone

The archaeological museum occupies a converted baglio — a fortified wine warehouse — on the seafront at the western edge of the old town. Its centrepiece is the Punic ship: roughly half the hull of a 35-metre Carthaginian warship, raised from the seabed off Punta Scario and painstakingly conserved.

The other rooms hold finds from Lilybaeum and the surrounding necropoleis: Phoenician anchors, terracotta votive masks, Roman glass, mosaic pavements, and a clean display of grave goods that traces the sequence of cultures along this coast. It is the obvious counterpart to a visit to Motya, and the two together give a coherent picture of Phoenician Sicily.

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A story
The Punic warship on display was discovered by the British archaeologist Honor Frost in 1969, after fishermen reported snagging timbers in the lagoon. It is the only surviving warship of the Punic Wars era — the actual vessel, not a reconstruction — and Carthaginian shipwrights' marks are still visible on the timbers showing how the modular hull was assembled.