Almodí Museum

What it is

Xàtiva's archaeological museum, at Calle de la Corretgeria 46, in the heart of the old town. It occupies the Almodí, the city's former grain exchange, completed in 1548 according to the plaque on the façade. The tourist office presents it as the last medieval building raised in Xàtiva and the first to use the language of the Renaissance: the façade is Gothic and keeps three royal coats of arms of the Crown of Aragon, which marked its public character; inside there is a Renaissance courtyard with Ionic columns. The adjoining building was the royal weigh-house and later the customs house and Bank of Spain.

What you will see

The tour runs from the Palaeolithic to Andalusi Xàtiva. It begins with reproductions of the first finds from Cova Negra, among them a Neanderthal parietal bone from the excavations of the first half of the twentieth century. It continues with an Iberian head of the fourth century BC, a legacy of Iberian Saiti, with Greek influence. From Roman Saetabis, a stop on the Via Augusta, with its own mint and famous for its linen, there is a collection of inscriptions. From the Visigothic period an altar reused by Bishop Athanasius stands out, whose name appears in the engraved text: Xàtiva was an episcopal seat in the sixth and seventh centuries, and the museum holds remains of that cathedral, over which the hermitage of Sant Feliu was built.

The most important piece is the eleventh-century Islamic basin, the first to enter the collection. It is carved from pink marble from the Buixcarró range, served as a drinking trough until the late eighteenth century, and its reliefs, by at least two sculptors, show scenes from ivories and textiles, motherhood, the tree of life and war. The Islamic room completes the ensemble with three horseshoe arches from the Arab baths, the double arch and the coffered ceiling from the Pinohermoso palace, of Almohad date and probably a private oratory, and Iberian, Roman, Muslim and district-made pottery, up to industrial ceramic murals from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Hours and tickets

Tuesday to Sunday and public holidays, from 10:00 to 14:30; the website gives this as the summer timetable (11 June to 8 September) and the sales calendar shows days with opening until 18:00, so confirm for the day you go. Phone 962 27 65 97; email [email protected].

The castle ticket, €6, includes this museum. If you don't climb the castle, the municipal museums ticket costs €4 and is also valid for the Fine Arts Museum; the reduced rate is €2 (ages 8 to 16, students, pensioners, large families, groups of ten or more and people with disabilities) and it is free up to age 7, although children also need their ticket. Buy online; tickets are non-exchangeable and non-refundable; bring the QR code on your phone or printed.

How to combine it

From the Corretgeria you are a few minutes from the Collegiate Church and within the layout of the Borgia route. Allow about 45 minutes to see it at a leisurely pace. As it closes in the early afternoon almost all year, it fits in the morning, before lunch in the old town and the climb to the castle, which opens later.