City Museum, in the Marqués de las Torres Palace

The municipal museum occupies the palace of the Marqués de las Torres, next to the Plaza de Arriba. It tells the story of Carmona from prehistory, with rooms devoted to the Tartessians, the Roman city and the medieval one. It is the best way to understand what you will see at the necropolis and at the gates of the city wall.

The palace

The house is a 16th-century palace, an example of Carmona's stately architecture, with plasterwork in the Mudéjar tradition on the balcony mouldings. The rooms are arranged over two floors around a square courtyard. On the staircase hangs a canvas of the Virgen de Gracia, and upstairs is the chimney room, the former formal dining room, the result of the 18th-century refurbishment that moved the house from Mudéjar taste to Baroque.

What you will see

The ground floor takes you through prehistory, from the first stone tools to the settlements of the Copper and Bronze Ages. It follows the arrival of Phoenician traders in the 8th century BC and Tartessian culture, with the Saltillo Collection, found in the house of the marquis of that name, the potter's wheel and the reconstruction of a Turdetan house. One room deals with Carthaginian Carmona, from 237 BC, with sling bullets and spearheads, and the moat of the Alcázar de la Puerta de Sevilla.

The Roman rooms are the most striking: paving slabs from the streets and column bases from the forum, a model of the domus, the statue of Nereus that decorated a fountain, the summer mosaic and a geometric one that even preserves the lead pipe the water flowed out of, as well as models of Roman Carmo and videos of the Puerta de Córdoba. Upstairs, medieval Carmona, with a complete Almoravid kitchen set and the 1303 seal of the Concejo, and the 19th- and 20th-century rooms, with two devoted to the Carmona painters José Arpa and Carmen Vega.

Admission and opening hours

It costs €2.50; €1.20 for students and groups; free for under-18s, pensioners and for everyone every Tuesday. It is open Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 19:00 and Monday from 11:00 to 14:00, with last entry half an hour before closing. Allow an hour.

What to combine it with

The Priory Church of Santa María is a few steps away, and the Santa Clara convent a few minutes' walk.