The Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua, locally known as the Museo archeologico dell'antica Capua, is a hidden gem nestled in the heart of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, in the province of Caserta, Campania. This museum is a testament to the rich and varied history of ancient Capua, offering visitors a fascinating journey through time, from prehistoric eras to the grandeur of the Roman Empire.
The museum is housed in a 19th-century architectural complex that stands on the remnants of the Capitolium, situated in the southern part of the ancient forum. This building, which once served as a cavalry barracks, has been under the care of the Ministry of Culture since 1981. The structure, made of tuff masonry with a wooden sloped roof, is built around a square courtyard of approximately 2,800 square meters. This courtyard, featuring a central garden, showcases part of the museum's outdoor collections, including stone fragments, sarcophagi, and an impressive marine-themed mosaic attributed to nearby Roman baths.
The museum's inception was driven by the need to present the materials unearthed during excavations in the second half of the 20th century in ancient Capua. The museum, inaugurated in 1995, focuses exclusively on the ancient city, following a change in the archaeological superintendent's directives. Since December 2014, it has been managed by the Ministry of Culture through the Campania Museum Center, which became the Regional Directorate of Museums in December 2019. In 2022, a new museum route was inaugurated, featuring a permanent exhibition titled I Segni del Paesaggio. L'Appia e Capua, marking the beginning of the museum's Roman section.
The museum's exhibition follows a chronological and thematic sequence, taking visitors on a journey from the embryonic phase of ancient Capua to the city's Samnite and Roman glory days, and finally to its post-Roman decline. The tour is divided into nine rooms dedicated to various periods, including prehistory, the Iron Age, the archaic period, the Etruscan city, Campanian knights, sanctuaries, and the rise of monumental architecture.
The entrance hall offers visitors access to the exhibition rooms and spaces dedicated to educational activities and laboratories, located where the Torre di Sant'Erasmo and the Capitolium once stood. At the center of the hall stands the monumental marble statue of the Resting Satyr, a refined Roman copy of a statue by Praxiteles. This sculpture, standing 1.86 meters tall and 0.76 meters wide, was in a dire state when discovered in 2002 in Piazza I Ottobre. Restored by the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, it now shines with new life, missing only its right arm. The museum's replica, dating to the first half of the 2nd century BC, bears similarities to the Satyrs housed in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and the Capitoline Museum in Rome.
These rooms display materials from the Bronze Age found in the Capua region and funerary objects dating from the 9th to the 7th centuries BC, sourced from two major Iron Age necropolises in Capua: the Necropolis of Nuovo Mattatoio and the Necropolis of Colle del Forno. During this period, the area was inhabited by populations of Ausonian and Etruscan lineage, who had contacts with the Greek colonies of Pithecusae and Cumae. Various funerary objects are on display, including decorated jars, personal effects of the deceased such as razors, fibulae, braid tweezers, and rings. Chevron or bird-metope cups, imported and locally imitated, testify to the contact with the Greek world. Large fibulae with elongated stirrups and bows decorated with glass paste beads from tomb 365 show traces of contact with the southern Etruscan world. Many vases were made locally.
Room IV is dedicated to the Orientalizing period, explaining the strong influence of ancient Greece between the late 7th and 6th centuries BC. Here, visitors can find ceramics and proto-Corinthian and Corinthian Greek vases.
The level of bronze craftsmanship in Capua was high, as evidenced by the lebes and ovoid vases. The production of moldable clay was also significant, used for creating votive statues and food utensils. Roof decorations, from palmette antefixes to those with a Gorgon, a female head among lotus flowers, or the head of Achelous, to a slab with a running Gorgon, and protomes, are also noteworthy.
Room VII showcases the most representative objects from the Archaic period (575-525 BC) and the Sub-Archaic period (525-423 BC), marking the peak and decline of Etruscan civilization. In the 6th century BC, Greek imports multiplied, as evidenced by Ionic cups and those of the Little Masters. Attic vases predominate, first in black-figure, then in red-figure, depicting myths, also made locally.
In the mid-5th century BC (438 BC), the Samnites settled in Capua, initially under Etruscan rule. This gave rise to the Campanian people, who took over Capua in 423. Signs of this period include belts, spears, or daggers, as well as ornate gold and silver jewelry. Numerous tuff tombs, with often painted interior walls, also date from this time.
Following Capua's betrayal of Rome during the Punic Wars, when it welcomed Hannibal Barca, the Romans reconquered the city in 211 and deprived it of political rights and fertile lands. Although stripped of autonomy, Capua continued to prosper with the production of perfumes, wheat, bronzes, and ceramics, and maintained trade with the Mediterranean. The typology of tombs changed, with simply inscribed steles, featuring the figure of the deceased or their family members.
The final room houses finds from Capua's most famous sanctuaries, including those of Diana Tifatina, the Diana venerated at the Basilica of Sant'Angelo in Formis, and the Fond Patturelli. Notable items include a lion-headed sima, a statue of Mater Matuta, and a tuff torso of a sphinx.
From 2022, the permanent exhibition will feature 100 works preserved since the mid-20th century, and in some cases even earlier, many of which have never been displayed before. These include portraits, imposing marble statues, sculptures, frescoes, mosaic floors, tombs, milestones, and inscriptions representing the Appian Way's witnesses along its route through Roman Capua.
Since 2022, the museum has also housed the remains of two statues from the 2nd and 3rd centuries: two marble heads representing Emperor Septimius Severus from the 3rd century and the deity Dionysus from the 2nd century. These important discoveries were the result of an investigation by the Carabinieri and the Department of Operations of the Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Carabinieri, in collaboration with the Computer Section and coordinated by the Prosecutor's Office of Santa Maria Capua Vetere. The statues had been stolen from the Antiquarium of the Campanian Amphitheater on November 18, 1985, along with numerous other archaeological finds. Following an investigation between 2016 and 2019, their illegal sale was discovered during auctions in New York. Thanks to collaboration with the American authorities, their sale was prevented, and the two works were returned to the archaeological heritage of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, with only the location of the statue of Diana remaining unknown.
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