MUSEUM

MUSEUM

The Municipal Archaeological and Ethnological Museum Dámaso Navarro opened its doors in 1999 to show the material evidence of the previous cultures that settled in Petrer from prehistory to the industrialization of the mid-twentieth century. < / b> The museum occupies one of the most central buildings in the city, built in 1935 . He was employed as a Hygiene Dispensary, school and teacher's house. From 1964 it was reused as a Public Library. The museum, although inaugurated in 1999, was recognized as a museum institution by the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Generalitat Valenciana in 2002. The museum is a place where they are preserved and studied, exhibited and objects of a historical, artistic or scientific nature are disclosed. Why the name of Dámaso Navarro ?. Dámaso Navarro Guillén was, along with other young people, the founder in the 60s of the Archaeological Group of Petrer . For years they looked for archaeological sites.

They went out to prospect the hills and valleys of the term in search of the traces left by our ancestors, doing some surveys, recovering fortuitous findings and saving the remains of ancient populations from the excavator shovel. Thanks to the indefatigable task of the Group, with the recovered materials they created a municipal deposit, making exhibitions in the premises of the Excursionist Center and the troupe of Labradores . As a result of his premature death, the Group decided to go by his name and when the Museum was created they dedicated it to his memory. In the decade of the Eighty the group is renewed and reinforced with new components, including some graduates in History and Archeology, who collaborate and direct the excavations carried out in the castle or in the historic center of the population. As a result of all this, today, in this Museum, the material remains of our ancestors are shown for a better understanding of our history .

Visiting hours from 11: 00h to 14: 00h from Monday to Sunday. Monday closed.

The origins: The archaeological group Dámaso Navarro
The origins: The archaeological group Dámaso Navarro
The origins: The archaeological group Dámaso Navarro
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The old Museum Dámaso Navarro
The old Museum Dámaso Navarro
The old Museum Dámaso Navarro
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The future of the museum: new oportunities
The future of the museum: new oportunities
The future of the museum: new oportunities
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The idea of having a historical museum in which to show the remains of past societies was a constant demand on the part of a group of young people. The creation started with a petrer's youngsters, who belongued to the OJE (Organización Juvenil Española) and others. They were interested by the history and the heritage of Petrer in the last seixties, so they founded the Archaeological Group as tribute to their impeller Dámaso Navarro, who, unfortunately, pass away soon.

The Archaeological – Etnological Museum Dámaso Navarro was inaugurated in 1999. The building, where used to be the municipal library, was built in the last 20th century. This building had been a unitary public school, an electoral college, a hygienic dispensary, a women's detention center at the end of the war, once again a school and a teachers' home. It was located in the central Plaza de Baix, next to the parish church of San Bartolomé, an apostle, and closed to the Town Hall of Petrer. Today we find Petrer's Tourist Info in the same building.

During this 20 years, the Museum Dámaso Navarro has been localitated with some limititations, because of that, some of the activities has been helpless due to the architectural distribution, and outdated museographic resources. The oportunity to change this situation was thanks to the sum of several circunstancies such as the colaboration with the "Diputación and Fundación CV MARQ of Alicante" to make a temporary exposition called: “Petrer. Arqueología y Museo” (Petrer. Archaeology and Museum), the availability of the property owned by the municipal street La Font, No. 1, and the firm commitment of the Government to consider it a priority issue.

  • Visiting hours from 11 h - 14 h from Tuesday to Sunday. Monday closed.

The origins of the Museum: The archaeological group Dámaso Navarro

The group marked the municipal districs to do the archaeological letter of Petrer: identifying sites from prehistoric, classical and medieval times. In the historical center they excavated in the sandlots and they could recovering restes of wildlife, ceramics and coins of Roman and medieval times. In the same way, they recovered an important roman mosaic, which was found closed to the Town Hall in 1975. That's why we call this township “Villa Petraria”

In 1998 some circunstancies coincided in the creation of the museum: On the one hand, the municipal library was moved to a new cultural centrer on San Bartolome street. On the other hand, the possession of a big variety of archaeological artefacts (prehistoric, classical, medieval and modern times) created the necessity to show all the materials to the public. Finally, the etnological exposition, was also ready to show in the same year.

They were to work-groups: the archaeological section was coordinated by the archeologist Concepción Navarro Poveda. The etnological section was put together by Vicent Navarro i Tomas.

Thanks to that work and the predisposition of the town hall of Petrer, the museum was ignaugurated on July 2, 1999.

The old Museum Dámaso Navarro

From 1999, until its closure in September 2017, the spatial distribution of the museum, with its 620 m2 of useful space, has hardly change, also the functionality of its rooms and outbuildings. The museum consisted on four floors, distributed as follows: in the basement was the store of archaeological and ethnological materials, the specialized library, the administrative archive of the museum and an archaeology workshop. The ground floor corresponded to the temporary exhibition hall, to the multifunctional room for activities and didactic workshop, to the Pinacoteca of the Town Hall of Petrer and to the office of the Tourist Info since 2009.

The first floor of the museum contained the management office and the permanent archaeology exhibition room, explaining what is the archeology and historical evolution of Petrer from prehistory to modern times.

Finally, the second floor has the permanent collection of ethnology, dedicated to the traditional trades and customs of the agricultural Petrer and potter. The collection was formed since the seventies thanks to the work of a group of people interested in preserving this pre-industrial culture materialized in the numerous donations from the residents of Petrer.

The future of the museum: new oportunities

The oportunity to change this situation was through the colaboration with la Diputación and the Foundation CV MARQ from Alicante, which was insterested on doing a temporal exposition. Also was important the availability of the property owned by the municipality of La Font Street, No. 1, and the decisive commitment of the Government team to consider it a priority issue. In 2017, an agreement was signed between the Town Council of Petrer and the Provincial Council of Alicante, through the CV MARQ Foundation, to hold the exhibition "Petrer. Archeology and Museum ", between February and May 2018, with the aim of adapted the building of La Font Street as the basis of our permanent exhibition. For this, a team was formed by the architect Rosa Fernández Ibiza, the graphic designer Julián Hinojosa García, the supervision of the technicians of the MARQ and the Dámaso Navarro Museum, and the participation of a large human team, who created a modern, attractive exhibition and accessible so that all kinds of public could know the history of Petrer.

From the end of 2018 to the beginning of 2019, work was carried out to transform the almost 700 m² of useful space in the new museum, showing the permanent exhibition that goes from the prehistoric period to the twentieth century, and integrating an archaeological space where it is preserved in situ a Roman oven from the 3rd century AD C.

On February 8, 2019, twenty years after the creation of the Sala Dámaso Navarro Municipal Museum, our renovated museum opened its doors.