108 / 344
102
10am–2pm; €3.50, free 1st Sun of month;
T
934 246 807,
W
www.museuetnologic
.bcn.cat), the city’s ethnological museum.This boasts extensive cultural collections
from across the globe, particularly the Amazon region, Papua New Guinea, pre-
Hispanic America,Australia,Morocco and Ethiopia. However, there are simply too
many pieces to show at any one time, so the museum has rotating exhibitions,
which usually last for a year or two and concentrate on a particular subject or
geographical area.Refreshingly,Spain and its regions aren’t neglected,which means
that there’s usually a focus on the minutiae of rural Spanish life or an examination
of subjects like medieval carving or early industrialization. For these exhibits, the
museum draws on the work of Spanish ethnographers such as RamonViolant who
spent much of the 1940s recording the daily routine of inhabitants in the Pyrenees.
In addition, the museum has opened up its
reserved rooms
,where the conservers
and staff have generally worked, and it’s a real treat to walk past the storage cabinets,
piled high with anything from African masks to Spanish fans.
Museu d’Arqueològia de Catalunya
Further down Passeig de Santa Madrona from the ethnological museum is the
impressive
Museu d’Arqueològia de Catalunya
(Tues–Sat 9.30am–7pm,
Sun & hols 10am–2.30pm; €3;
T
934 246 577,
W
www.mac.cat), whose array
of relics spans the centuries from the Stone Age to the time of the Visigoths,
with the Roman and Greek periods particularly well represented. The
sections dealing with prehistoric, Stone and Bronze Age periods are the most
disappointing, with any interest well hidden by the old-fashioned case-by-
case presentation – though to be fair some exhibits are gradually being
updated. However, there’s no such reservation about the displays in the central
rotunda, which concentrate on sixth- and seventh-century BC finds from the
Greek site at Empúries on the Costa Brava, some beautiful figures from the
Carthaginian settlements in Ibiza, and ceramics from the Iberian era, including
tablets bearing inscriptions in an indecipherable script. The highlights are
many and varied, including a notable marble statue of Asclepius, Greek god
of medicine, which dominates the hall.The Second PunicWar (218–201 BC)
saw the Carthaginians expelled from Iberia by the Romans, who made their
provincial capital at Tarragona (Tarraco), with a secondary outpost at
Barcelona (Barcino).There’s some fine Roman glassware and mosaic work on
display, while an upper floor interprets life in
Barcino
itself through a collec-
tion of tombstones, statues, inscriptions and friezes found all over the city.
Some of the stonework is remarkably vivid, depicting the faces of some of
Barcino’s inhabitants as clearly as the day they were carved.
La Ciutat del Teatre
At the foot of Montjuïc, on the eastern slopes, the theatre area known as
La
Ciutat del Teatre
occupies a back corner of the old working-class neighbour-
hood of Poble Sec. Passeig de Santa Madrona runs down here from MNAC,
passing the ethnological and archeological museums, or there are more direct
steps descending the hillside.
MONTJUÏC
|
Museu d’Arqueològia de Catalunya • La Ciutat del
Teatre