About the museum:
The Archaeological Museum in Zagreb is one of the immediate successors of the one-time National Museum, the oldest museum institution in the Croatian capital. This first national museum institution started to work publicly in 1846, the day a special exhibition in the premises of the then National Home in Opatička ulica 18 was opened. From its foundation, the museum passed through several phases of organisation. At the recommendation of the parliament, in 1866, the museum became the “Land” or Provincial Institute of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, enjoying parliamentary protection and was managed by the Academy of Sciences and Arts. Then the museum was divided into an archaeological and natural history department. From 1878 the Archaeological Department worked independently, but still as a part of the National Museum. In the early 1880s the archaeological collections were moved to the cramped quarters of the newly built palace of the Academy in Zrinski trg, where the Archaeological Department of the Museum, later the Archaeological Museum, was to work. The museum holdings, which have today about 400,000 differing artefacts, have been collected from varying sources. In the first years and decades most of the monumental material of the museum was acquired by purchase or donations, while museum trustees, who worked all over the country, had a great role in the collecting activity. As early as the 1880s the museum started systematic archaeological excavations in various parts of Croatia, thus acquiring some fine monumental material, as well as information invaluable for the study of the life of the inhabitants from prehistoric to medieval times. Today field research is the main source for the collection of appropriate monumental material. In more recent times, along with systematic research and works on the presentation of the Roman architectural complex in Šćitarjevo by Zagreb and in Varaždinske Toplice, experts at the museum are carrying out investigations in Žumberak, in Stenjevec by Zagreb, and in other sites in the inland parts of Croatia, particularly in the general area of Zagreb.
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