From the ground-floor spaces dedicated to the town to the exhibition areas showcasing the results of over a century of archaeological research in Susa and its valley.
The first room is dedicated to the oldest artefacts from the area, dating from the Neolithic to the Iron Age: among these is the bronze spearhead from Avigliana, in the hamlet of Malano, dating from between the mid-14th and early 12th centuries BC, which has exact parallels in the Canton of Fribourg and the Valais and bears witness to a network of relations, which even then spanned the Alps, with communities on the other side of the mountains.
The next six rooms trace the origins and development of the Roman town of Segusio: the agreement signed between Augustus and King Cozius – an event which, in 13 BC, led to the creation of the Province of the Cottian Alps – and the arch erected a few years later to commemorate it; the city of Segusio with its forum, major infrastructure projects, official cults alongside deities of local tradition, daily life in the domus, and the necropolis. Among the items on display are two bronze statuettes dating from the 2nd–1st centuries BC depicting Hercules Promachos — the warrior hero, standing, with a club and a leonté — which represent the oldest evidence in the Alpine region of new forms of Greco-Roman worship.
The museum exhibition also has a natural history focus, housing the Civic Museum’s most recent collections, whilst the ‘Wunderkammer’ transports us to the atmosphere of the late 19th century.