Benguela – Over 5,000 people, including students and national and foreign tourists, visited the National Museum of Archeology of Benguela (MNAB), in 2023, ANGOP learned on Monday.
According to the general director of MNAB, Maria Helena Benjamin, the museum institution, with a collection of 9,150 pieces, reopened its doors to the public in May 2023, after rehabilitation and equipping works, given the state of degradation it presented.
Maria Helena Benjamin considers that the Benguela Archaeological Museum has already become one of the city's main attractions, which has been reflected in the increase in the number of visitors.
According to the manager, the Museum receives an average of 500 visitors every month, an increase of 200, compared to the period before its reopening.
The National Archeology Museum operates in a former slave warehouse, a building from the 17th and 18th centuries, measuring eight thousand square meters, which makes it a great attraction for national and foreign tourists visiting Benguela.
He mentioned that, in the month of December alone, more than 800 people visited the museum to learn a little more about the history of the period in which this building served as Benguela's customs house and a concentration point for slaves, destined for the Americas.
He made it known that the gallery of permanent, temporary or itinerant exhibitions is a point of attraction, in addition to educational and leisure activities held inside and outside the space.
As a result of the works carried out by the Provincial Government of Benguela, Maria Helena Benjamin recognizes that, nowadays, the infrastructure is better prepared to meet the demand, with emphasis on the new exhibition gallery, a space for the appreciation and dissemination of history and of national culture.
In addition to the lack of technicians, the manager of the only museum in the city of Benguela still complains about the lack of means of transport to travel to archaeological stations, aimed at scientific research work.
Collection
Being a national museum, it has around three thousand objects collected until 1974, from 16 archaeological sites in Angola, namely in the provinces of Luanda, Uíge, Huambo, Huíla, Namibe, Cuanza Norte and Lunda Norte.
Other objects result from the work of the MNAB Research Brigade, both in surface collection and in archaeological excavation work in the Baía Farta region, since its creation and foundation in 1976.
The collection is made up of megalodon (shark tooth) fossils, whale fossils, objects ranging from pre-History, which are stone instruments to the present day, which are ceramics, pearls (seashell beads and ostrich egg) and macutas (first coin minted in bronze for Angola).
In addition to this mobile collection, the director says that there is also the property, which are the cave paintings, around 43 rock art sites spread across the national territory. JH/CRB/DOJ
