J.J. Museum of Antiquity Winckelmann

The JJ Winckelmann Museum of Antiquities is located in the main square of the city of Trieste, Piazza dell'Unità d'Italia. The Museum has very ancient origins, the inauguration of the first nucleus of sculptures belonging to the scholar and historian Domenico Rossetti dates back to the nineteenth century. The museum was dedicated to JJ Winckelmann, precursor of modern archeology. The collection is rich and very varied, ranging from Prehistory to the findings of the Bronze and Iron Age up to the vast Roman collection from Aquileia. Also of great interest is the Egyptian collection with more than a thousand pieces, one of the main in all of northern Italy. In the rooms are exhibited the sarcophagi in granite, wood or limestone, stuccoed and then painted. Human mummies from 3000 years ago have been found in some sarcophagi. The collection also consists of papyrus sheets, canopic jars, pyramidions and stelae. Furthermore, the statuettes depicting the main deities are historically relevant: zoo-anthropomorphic deities, sacred animals, servants of the deceased in stone, wood and amulets. In the garden adjacent to the museum we can admire the monument to Winckelmann, a neoclassical work by the sculptor Antonio Bosa.