Archaeology

From the very beginning, the museum has been the reference point for local archaeology, ever since Pere Giró, a scholar and archaeologist by vocation, pioneered the excavation of sites in the Penedès during the first half of the 20th century. Today, the museum holds material from more than 600 excavated sites—an essential testimony to human activity in the Alt and Baix Penedès and Garraf regions, from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages, including the Iberian and Romanization periods. This collection is complemented by pieces of great historical and aesthetic interest, such as amphorae, oinochoes, askois, and aryballoi, which entered the museum to illustrate the “Archaeological Exhibition of Wine”—an exhibition that became the seed of the Wine Museum, inaugurated in 1943 on the occasion of the “First Vineyard and Wine Fair” held that year in Vilafranca.