Barcelona

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Museu d’Arqueologia de Catalunya

Passeig de Santa Madrona 39-41

The time frame for this archaeological collection starts with the Palaeolithic period, and there are relics of Greek, Punic, Roman and Visigoth colonisers, up to the early Middle Ages. A massive Roman sarcophagus is carved with scenes of the rape of Persephone, and an immense statue of Aesculapius, the god of medicine, towers over one room. The display ends with the marvellous, jewel-studded headpiece of a Visigoth king. One of the best-loved pieces, perhaps inevitably, is an alarmingly erect Priapus, found during building work in Sants in 1848 and kept under wraps ‘for moral reasons’ until 1986.

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