As the Oltenia Museum has several departments, all of them being actual independent museum, you can continue your cultural experience here with a visit to the History and Archaeology Department, which you will find in a beautiful building, on Madona Dudu Street No 44. It is here that you will have the chance of discovering just how important Oltenia was in the history of the country over the centuries.
This museum is rather old, having been founded in 1915, when it was called the Museum of Ethnography and Antiquities of Oltenia, the work of Stefan Ciuceanu, a history professor at the Carol I Highschool, who gave his best for that Craiova could have it's own history museum. At first, it's main objectives were to start serious archaeological and ethnographic research in the region, to discover and clear everything about it's ancient history. Most of the new exhibits in the following years came from donations or from the archaeological diggings in the region, many done by students. In 1928, a new department was opened at the museum, that of archaeology, led by C.S. Nicolaescu-Plopsor, who would later discover several old, Roman settlements in the area. In 1929 - 1932 the museum became better known abroad, as it's specialists often worked together with museums and publications from France, Poland, Spain and other countries.
Nowadays, the History and Archaeology Deparment of the Oltenia Museum has over 20 collections, comprising over 160.000 different exhibits, including coins and medals, various documents, ceramics, weapons, accessories, manuscripts, photographs, a vast collection of old books, magazines and newspapers, as well as a large number of objects that have been in the posession of important characters in Romanian history.
2008-01-17
