Inaugurated in 1967 in the Palace of Sciences at Eur with the aim of equipping Rome with an archaeological museum of the post-classical age and promoting research on a strategic period for the study of the transformation of the ancient world, the Museum exhibits materials dating from the 4th to the 14th century mostly originating from Rome and central Italy.
Late antique Rome (4th-6th centuries) is represented by three imperial portraits, some votive and funerary inscriptions, and a precious gold crossbow fibula with openwork decoration. Following are the testimonies of the Lombard occupation in Umbria and the Marche (6th-7th centuries) with the two most important necropolises in central Italy (Nocera Umbra and Castel Trosino), which constitute the core of excellence with their sets of weapons, jewelry, ivories, glass, and bronze and ceramic tableware.
The subsequent Carolingian age is illustrated by a substantial group of marble reliefs from the architectural decoration of churches in Rome and Lazio, profoundly renewed during the “Carolingian Renaissance” (9th-10th centuries). Belonging to the same period are the furnishings and objects from two papal-founded agricultural estates, the domusculte of S. Cornelia and S. Rufina, created in the Roman countryside for the supply of the city (late 8th-10th centuries) and persisted with other functions until the full Middle Ages.
The path concludes with the “Coptic” collection consisting of reliefs and textiles that offer a significant example of the artistic production of late antique and early medieval Egypt (5th-10th centuries).
In the Museum is also exhibited the extraordinary opus sectile decoration (inlay of colored marbles) that adorned the reception hall of a monumental domus outside Porta Marina in Ostia.
