Arheoloski muzej Istre

The museum collection in Pula came into being when Marshal Marmont started collecting stone monuments in the Temple of Augustus in 1802. However, what gave rise to the foundation of the Pula Municipal Museum (Museo civico) in 1902 was the discovery of stone, ceramic and metal objects in Nesactium. By moving the headquarters of the Societa Istriana di Archeologia e Storia Patria and transferring the archaeological holdings from Poreč to Pula, the Municipal Museum merged with the National Collection (stone monuments) and the Poreč Regional Museum (Museo Provinciale) to form a single museum institution of wider regional importance. In 1925, the Istrian Museum (Il Regio Museo dell' Istria) was thus set up in the building where the present-day museum is located.

The museum was first opened to visitors in 1930 and on this occasion a museum guide was published in the Italian language. This collection was on display in its original form, with only minor changes, until the end of the Second World War when during the Anglo-American government many objects were transferred to Italy. The museum reopened in 1949 as the Archaeological Museum of Istria with some slight changes introduced in the stone collection and collections of other exhibits. Systematic work and huge efforts that followed the restitution of part of the archaeological material from Italy in 1961 lead to the gradual reconstruction of the museum building and the development of a didactic-visual conception of the representative museum holdings. In 1968 a collection of stone monuments was set up in the refurbished rooms and halls on the ground floor of the museum (which is currently being refurbished again) and in 1973 followed the opening of the prehistoric collection exhibition halls on the first floor and the classical Roman and medieval collections on the second floor of the museum. The exhibition halls of the Archaeological Museum of Istria are constantly enriched with new finds from archaeological sites throughout Istria (prehistoric caves, hill-forts and necropolises, Roman commercial complexes, buildings and cemeteries and sacral object dating from the Early Christian and Byzantine periods, as well as those dating back to the period of barbarian attacks and settlement of the Slav population in Istria).