Inaugurated in 1967 in the Palazzo delle Scienze at the Eur with the aim of providing 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 from Rome and central Italy.
Three imperial portraits, some votive and funerary inscriptions, and a precious gold crossbow fibula with openwork decoration date back to late antique Rome (4th-6th centuries). These are followed by evidence of the Lombard occupation in Umbria and the Marche (6th-7th centuries) with the two most important necropolises of central Italy (Nocera Umbra and Castel Trosino), which constitute its core of excellence with their sets of weapons, jewelry, ivories, glass, and bronze and ceramic vessels.
The subsequent Carolingian age is illustrated by a large group of marble reliefs from the architectural decoration of the churches of Rome and Lazio, which were profoundly renewed at the time of the “Carolingian Renaissance” (9th-10th centuries). From the same period come the furnishings and everyday objects from two papal foundation farms, the domusculte of S.Cornelia and S.Rufina, created in the Roman countryside to supply the city (late 8th-10th centuries) and lasting with other functions into the high Middle Ages.
The journey concludes with the “Coptic” collection consisting of reliefs and textiles that provide a significant example of the artistic production of late antique and early medieval Egypt (5th-10th centuries).
Also on display in the Museum is the extraordinary opus sectile decoration (inlay of colored marbles) that adorned the reception hall of a monumental domus outside Porta Marina in Ostia.
