NOW THE MUSEUM IN THE HUNIADE CASTLE IS CLOSED FOR RENOVATION
(all departments)

TEMPORARY EXHIBITIONS CAN BE VISITED AT
BASTION THERESIA - 4, MARTIN LUTHER STREET

The Banat National Museum hosts important archaeological vestiges, historic cultural and natural sciences artefacts, especially from the Banat region.
The museum includes the following Sections: History, Archaeology, Natural Sciences and Laboratory Restoration of heritage objects.

The Banat Museum was in function more than 60 years in the Huniade Castle.
For the time being, because of the renovation works at the Huniade Castle, the offices and the temporary exhibitions are hosted by the Maria Theresia Bastion.

     Maria Theresia Bastion
     4, Martin Luther st.
     Phone: +40 256 491339
     www.mnab.ro

     Open: Tuesday - Sunday
               10 - 18

 
At Huniade Castle:

The Banat Museum occupied the entire space offered by Huniade Castle, – the oldest documented building in Timisoara.
It was built by King Charles Robert of Anjou between 1307 and 1315 as a royal residence, also having military functions. It was later expanded under Iancu de Hunedoara, but was also damaged during the many sieges (1552, 1716, 1849). It acquired its contemporary appearance after the 1856 reconstruction, and since 1948 the castle houses the Banat Museum collections. Following the archaeological research conducted in 2009, in the courtyard there were discovered the foundations of the first donjon tower of the medieval castle, together with a still functional well. It was also established that this tower was built on the foundation of an even older building. The courtyard also preserves a lapidarium collection, with ancient and medieval works.

The museum had three departments:
                            - the Department of Archeology 
                            - the Department of History 
                            - the Department of Mineralogy and Natural Sciences  

The Department of Archeology

The most important objective of the Department of Archeology is the Neolithic sanctuary from Parţa, fully restored. In the shrine room there is a parallelepipedic shaped pedestal, made of clay, on which there is a double statue, with two heads. One of them is a bull’s head and the other is a head of a woman with her face hidden by a ritual mask. The artistic manifestation from 6,000 years ago was linked to a fecundity and fertility cult. Sanctuary from Parţa is reconstituted close to scale, being unique in Europe. The collections of this department cover a long historical period, from the Paleolithic and Iron Age civilization. Among these we can notice the funerary urns exhibition in Banat, but also the reconstitution of three living areas: a cave and two houses.

The Department of History

In the Department of History only the Modern and Contemporary Ages part is open and it presents Banat’s economic development, as well as the rebellions that happened here since the eighteenth to the mid twentieth century. After 1716, the Banat faced a sudden transition from feudalism to modernity, marked both by social unrest and remarkable progress.

Among the objects can be seen an automatic machine for sweets, a model of Traian Vuia’s flying machine, calculating machines, models of the first trolleybus and of the first tram built in Timişoara, and many more. The exhibition captures the politics of the interwar period, the fight against revisionism, Second World War and the establishment of the Communist regime.

The Department of Natural Sciences

Banat’s natural heritage, with its various aspects, is presented at the Department of Natural Sciences, which continues the traditions of the Timişoara Society of Natural Sciences, founded between 1873 and 1918. The permanent exhibitions are those of The Flora and Fauna of the Banat, Human Evolution, Evolution of Living Creatures and Aesthetic Mineralogy. There are also numerous temporary exhibitions. The Department of Natural Sciences has a lot of extremely valuable and representative pieces structured in collections: The collection of rocks and minerals, The paleontology collection, The pressed plants collection (the Herbarium), The butterflies collection, The beetles collection, The birds, eggs and bones collection, as well as others of lesser scale. Among the personalities who contributed to completing the collections we mention Dr. Lajos Kuhn (1844-1900), Dionisie Linţia (1880-1952), Emil Nadra (1904-1978), Dr. Frideric König (1910-2002).