The Museum is housed into the De Galitiis-De Albentiis and Tascini palaces which were given to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Atri in order to "increase the honour and the prestige of the town". It is made up of these sections arranged thanks to some financing from the Cassa di Risparmio della Provincia di Teramo (Savings bank Foundation of the Province of Teramo), as well as from the Ministry for the Arts - Monuments and Fine Arts,  office of the Abruzzi  - Chieti and the Town council of Atri.

Room 1: Rosati collection

The first room is a tribute to the figure and work of the ing. Vincenzo Rosati, headmaster of the old Arts and Crafts School of the Orphanage of Atri. He had been devoting his job and studying archaeology at the excavations of Atri and neighbouring countries since the end of '800, taking care of the collection of much material recovered there, on behalf of the Director of the Archaeological Museum of Bologna and the state excavation up to the Abruzzi. In a big show-case divided into four parts we can admire several finds of different origin, in some cases, unfortunately unknown (ariballos, laghynos, kantharos, balsamari, etc.). The other pieces come from Atri (necklace rings, hangings of different shapes, bracelets, armlets, swords, lance points, etc.); Penne (points of javelin etc.); Arsita, former Bacucco (bronze buckle, "arula"); the Italic Temple of Colle S. Giorgio, next Castiglione Messer Raimondo ("antefissa a palmette", coating slab, etc.).

Room 2: Prehistoric section

The second room, devoted to the Abruzzi prehistory, illustrates the handiwork used by primitive people, from Paleolithic (about 300.000 years B.C.) up to the early Iron Age (about 1000 - 750 B.C.). Reproductions of objects of different kind have been carried out, while archaeological finds from Atri come from the excavations at Colle Maralto, settlement dating back to the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Early Iron Age: there are fragments of fine pottery and mixture. In the didactic display panels, you can find widenings about chronological phases as well as the technics of splintering the flint-stone, the farming processes, the pottery and metals craftsmanship.

Room 3: Protohistoric section

The third room, which is the most attractive because of the presence of two integral graves which were digged up in the early '900, collects the results of the excavations carried out by the Ancient times excavations Management for Emilia and Marche, headed by Edoardo Brizio, with the help of Vincenzo Rosati e Luciano Proni since 1895.                   The archaeological finds which were brought to light in the 38 graves digged up at the period of the two Atri Necropolis of Colle della Giustizia and Pretara, were restored in the seventies. But only a twenty-two graves are their equipment displayed in the show-case; probably they belonged to two or three families and they dated back to the three-quarters of the VI° century B.C. We have six men's outfits made up of the typical warrior equipment with club heads, knives, lance points, daggers, etc. The remaining women's graves are divided into two numerically equivalent groups. They contain spindles, bronze and iron buckles, belt plates, collars, omega hooks, different kinds of clapper hangings, small tubes, glassy paste pearls and shells, pottery vases at different size and shape.

Traduzione di Claudia Nespoli