Originally there was an Antiquarium, created in the large space that in ancient times had been used as a cistern for the inhabitants of Villa de' Bagni, the current Ischia Porto.

It was there that the archaeologist Giorgio Buchner had for years transferred the finds that day by day emerged from the excavations conducted in Lacco Ameno since 1952, after having drawn, photographed and catalogued them. Hundreds of precious boxes and boxes with the testimonies of Pithecusa, the first settlement of the second Greek colonization in the West, in the eighth century BC, which was re-emerging between the necropolis of San Montano, the acropolis of Monte Vico and the corresponding large inhabited area way to the current centre of Lacco Ameno and the immediate surroundings. An arrangement created with love and dedication by Buchner, who, however, already imagined a more appropriate location for the enormous amount of materials of great historical-archaeological interest that was accumulating.

It took years for that idea, then translated into a specific project, to be transformed into a real museum, with the added value of having found its home in the eighteenth-century Villa Arbusto, on the hill behind the centre of Lacco. It was 17 April 1999 when, on a sunny spring morning, in the presence of the elite of European archeology gathered around Buchner, the new Archaeological Museum of Pithecusae was inaugurated.

Today, after the disappearance in 2005 of the German-born archaeologist who unveiled the "dawn of Magna Graecia", a bust reminds visitors of him. Dutiful tribute to the author of the discovery and study of the heritage that illustrates the history of the island from the Bronze Age to Roman times.

From Prehistory

The museum itinerary that winds through the rooms on the noble floor of Villa Arbusto starts from Prehistory. In particular, the ceramic and lithic materials found in the Cilento area, near the cemetery of Ischia, date back to the Upper Middle Neolithic. Instead, the objects from the village, studied by Buchner for his degree thesis, on the Castiglione hill, near the current Casamicciola, date back to the period between the Middle Bronze Age and the Iron Age.

Some showcases are dedicated to evidence of the Iron Age before the arrival of the Greeks: objects of daily use, such as terracotta stoves, vases and cups, and an interesting "Villanovian" vase.

The testimonies of Pithecusa

The main part of the museum exhibition concerns the great variety of finds attributable to Pithecusa, founded by Greek colonists from the large island of Evia in the second quarter of the eighth century, a few decades before Rome. The introductory section to that phase of the island's history illustrates the dense network of commercial relations established by the Pithecusan sailors with the Greek motherland and with Spain, with Carthage (among the first inhabitants of Pithecusa there were also Phoenicians) and the Near East and with the Italic peoples, from Etruria to Puglia, from Calabria to Sardinia.

Of great importance is the display of the grave goods from the tombs of the necropolis of San Montano, used uninterruptedly for burials over a millennium, starting from the middle of the eighth century BC. It was the excavations in the necropolis that returned the most significant pieces of the museum: the amphora of Ajax and Achilles, the lekytos of the goats by the Cesnola Painter (a Pithecusan potter), the vase of the Fates and the most famous late geometric crater of Pithecusan production with the very rare Shipwreck scene from the end of the 8th century. And, above all, the famous Cup of Nestor, in geometric style and imported from Rhodes, on which in Pithecusa were engraved in the Euboic alphabet from right to left verses that refer to the Iliad and which represent the oldest poetic composition found in the West, moreover coeval with the Homeric poems.

Rich is the display of Corinthian pottery of excellent workmanship present in the most ancient funerary objects. Corinthian vases have also re-emerged from a deposit in Pastola, used from the end of the 7th century, which has returned, among other things, the so-called "cabinet of horses", with figurines of mules and two models of carts driven by mules, but also several models of boats and some terracotta spinning tops.

In the locality of Mazzola, where the metallurgical district of Pithecusa was discovered, in addition to various finely worked bronze and iron finds and interesting remains of workmanship, the fragment of the so-called Inos crater was found, with the oldest signature of a ceramist.

Among the imported materials from every corner of the Mediterranean, where the goods of the Pithecusans also arrived, the collection of Egyptian scarabs from the Nile Valley, worn as amulets by children in Pithecusa, and of scarab seals, among which the particular series of the "lyre player".

Also imported were the large amphorae of Carthaginian and Phoenician origin placed in the centre of the second room: they were used to transport foodstuffs and then reused for the enchytrismòs burial of infants and children.

Around the sixth century, the kilns of the highly skilled Pithecusan potters in Keramèikos, located under the church and the square of Santa Restituta, were still in full operation, even for export objects. In that period the affirmation of Cuma, the daughter of Pithecusa on the mainland who had already become a power, and some volcanic events, marked the beginning of a slow and progressive decline for the island colony. The architectural terracottas of the temples that once stood on the acropolis of Monte Vico belong to that period, including the particular lateral sima with a ram's head drip. There are numerous valuable specimens of Attic ceramics from the archaeological site of the acropolis. Which over time has also kept numerous pieces of tableware painted black "Campana A", locally produced and exported from Pithecusa in the Hellenistic period to Africa, Spain and southern France.

Although most of the finds from the so-called Fattoria di Punta Chiarito are exhibited in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, in the Magna Grecia section, Villa Arbusto houses a reconstruction of the hut and a stone louterion.

The Roman era and Aenaria

The part of the museum's exhibition itinerary relating to the Roman era offers the few, but nonetheless significant testimonies of Aenaria brought to light from the seabed in the 1970s, when ceramic objects were found by chance under the sand of the bay of Sant'Anna dominated by the Aragonese Castle. Also exhibited at Villa Arbusto are stocks of anchors and large ingots of tin lead and fragments of galena, from the Spanish mines of Cartagena, which bear the stamps of the powerful Atellii family, active between Spain and Italy from the end of the to the first half of the 1st century BC.

Even if, as in the case of the Chiarito finds, the originals have been kept since their discovery in 1757 at the Mann in Naples, the Lacco museum, at the very end of its exhibition itinerary, presents the casts of the marble votive reliefs of Nitrodi. The sculpted slabs depict Apollo with the zither and some nymphs who, with vases and shells, pour the healthy water from the island's spring, already known to the Romans for its therapeutic virtues. All bear dedications that identify them as votive offerings of inhabitants of the island in Roman times. It is the only votive complex of its kind to have re-emerged from the past in southern Italy, so it has a value that goes far beyond the strictly artistic one.

Information
Opening hours: the museum is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Full price ticket: 8€
Reduced ticket: 6€