Antequera City Museum

Antequera's municipal museum occupies the Palacio de Nájera, on Plaza del Coso Viejo, right in the centre. It began in 1908 as the Town Council's archaeological museum and today tells the story of the Antequera lands in order, from prehistory to the 20th century. Admission is free, which makes it an easy stop on any stroll round the old town.

The building and the collection

The palace was begun in the first third of the 18th century. From the square, your eye is caught by its cut-brick belvedere tower, the work of the master builder Nicolás Mejías, and inside it has a courtyard with twelve Tuscan columns and a staircase covered by a dome with plasterwork.

The rooms run from prehistory and megalithism, with an echo of the nearby Menga and Viera Dolmens, to Roman Antequera: funerary rites, daily life, sculpture from the villas of the vega and a collection of inscriptions. Next come Visigothic and medieval remains, the transition to the Renaissance city, 16th- and 17th-century vestments and embroidery, silverwork and Baroque painting and sculpture, with work by Pedro de Mena, Antonio Mohedano, Bocanegra and Juan Correa, up to 20th-century painters such as Cristóbal Toral.

The Ephebe of Antequera

The most famous piece is in Room IV. It is a 1st-century Roman bronze, hollow and cast by the lost-wax method, depicting a naked adolescent wearing a crown of ivy leaves. It turned up by chance around 1955, during farm work at the Las Piletas farmstead, in the vega, and was made known in 1963. Its arms held away from the body suggest that it held an offering.

Opening hours and admission

It is open every day from 10:00 to 18:00. On 24 and 31 December and 5 January it closes at 14:00, and it does not open on 25 December or 1 and 6 January. For the full visit you must enter at least one hour before closing. Admission is free. The audio guide costs €3 (€2 for children and over 65s) and the hosted visit, on Saturdays and Sundays at 12:30, €10 (€5 reduced). Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Telephone: 952 70 83 00.

Allow an hour; a little more with the audio guide. Pets are admitted on a lead and supervised.

Getting there

Plaza del Coso Viejo is in the centre, a few minutes' walk from the Descalzas Convent Museum and a ten-minute climb from the Alcazaba.