Byzantine and Early Medieval Abruzzo Museum - Ducal Castle

The Museum of Byzantine and Early Medieval Abruzzo is located in Crecchio in the province of Chieti.

The Museum is housed in the Ducal Castle and exhibits objects found in the archaeological excavation campaigns conducted by the Archaeological Superintendence of Abruzzo in collaboration with the Archeoclub Crecchio, in a Roman-Byzantine villa in the locality of Vassarella in the municipality of Crecchio, between 1988. and 1991.

The castle has developed from a pre-existing tower called "dell'Ulivo" in thirteenth-century style and following transformations over the centuries, transformations that took place starting from the fifteenth century.

 

The castle thus changed its shape from a defensive structure to a residential architecture.

In particular, it collects everyday objects such as bowls, oil lamps, amphorae, so-called “Crecchio type” ceramics, bronze pottery and precious wooden finds.

The numerous finds testify to a dense network of commercial exchanges between Byzantine Abruzzo and the East, especially Coptic Egypt, have made it possible to reconstruct the historical events of Frentano Abruzzo at the time of Byzantine domination, between VI and VII century AD.

To enrich the exhibition are added finds from various locations in coastal Abruzzo, including the tabula patronatus of 383 AD, found near San Salvo (Chieti), which certifies the conferral of the patronage of the city of Cluviae (Laroma-Casoli Plan).

The Greco-Gothic war that upset the Abruzzo territory in the winter of 537-538 AD. it is documented by a series of weapons, including an Ostrogoth helmet in gilded copper and iron found in the locality of Santa Lucia, near Torricella Peligna.

The Alberto Carlo Fraracci room shows an Etruscan collection donated to the Archeoclub d'Italia section of Crecchio in 1995 by the Fraracci family.

On 20 July 2007 a new section of the museum was inaugurated dedicated to the precious wooden finds recovered in the cistern of the Roman-Byzantine villa of Casino Vezzani-Vassarella.

Map: Byzantine and Early Medieval Abruzzo Museum - Ducal Castle