Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Fratta Polesine

The National Archaeological Museum is based in the open barn of Villa Badoer in Fratta Polesine. It presents archaeological collections from the area of Frattesina and its necropoles. This settlement located on the banks of the ancient arm of Po river, is very unique in the Italian Protohistory: it is the source of highly specialised handicraft (glass, bronze, bone/horn), it also used to serve as a contact point with the Mediterranean and central Europe. Two necropoles containing hundreds ofgraves (almost all with cremated bodies) have been partly excavated around the living part of the modern city.Frattesina was discovered in the 1960's during deep excavation and tillage works. The initial phase of exploration and research was followed by intense archaeological diggings that lasted till the 1990s. In the middle of 1980s the works on the necropolis in Fondo Zanotto and then in Narde were initiated. The Frattesina site is widely recognised in the european scientific literature.