Diogo de Sousa Archaeological Museum - Braga

The D. Diogo de Sousa Museum was founded in 1918 and revived in 1980.

The Diogo de Sousa Archaeological Museum was named after the notable Archbishop of Braga .

He was responsible for the structural urban renewal in the city of Braga and the first great advocate of the preservation of the remains of "Bracara Augusta" - the period of Roman occupation.

It is an archaeological museum that has been open to the public since June 2007 in a building that was built from scratch. The collections are mainly made up of objects resulting from archaeological research in the northern region, particularly in the city of Braga. The collection covers a large chronological and cultural period, from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages.

The permanent exhibition is divided into four main sections . The first covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age. Geographically, the area of origin of these collections covers the Minho region. In the other rooms, the collections come from Bracara Augusta and its surroundings.

In the second room you can see elements that illustrate the integration of the city into the Roman Empire and the development of local activities: ceramics, metal and glass. In the third room you can see information about Roman urbanism, public and domestic spaces. In the last room, in addition to a collection of Roman milestones of the roads, you can see the remains of necropolises. Some finds related to religiosity in the Roman and Paleochristian periods complete the permanent exhibition.

In the basement of the service building there are remains of a house, "in situ", from the Roman period , with a mosaic.

Willem Vandenameele