About the museum

Batumi Archaeological museum is one of the significant scientific,educational and cultural centres of our country.The building which has being housing the museum since 1994 belongs to  architectural monuments in the midst of the 20^th century.

The exposition hall of the museum  displays  artefacts of the Stone,Bronze,Iron,Classical,Hellenistic,Roman,Byzantine and Late Middle Ages ,which had been found mainly on the territory of south-western Georgia(Kobuleti,Makhvilauri,Pichvnari,Tsikhisdziri,Batumistsikhe,Gonio-Apsaros,Adjaristhkhali gorge ,etc) as a result of more than 50-year period  archaeological excavations.

The ancient exhibits are represented by stone tools found in  mountain  Adjara, Beshumi resort, and dated  to 300-400 000BC.The exhibition shows that our region belongs to those hearts of the world civilization,where transition from the economy based on hunter-gathering and fishing to a manufacturing economy took place about 10000 years ago.The next periods of development –the Eneolithic-Early Bronze ages(5^th-3th millennia BC),especially the Late Bronze and Early Iron ages ,are represented by rich and diverse museum pieces.The Chorokhi river basin is identified as one of the ancient centres of  metallurgy,which in the 2^nd millennium BC turned to be the cradle of the western Georgian(Colchian) tribal culture.The ancient Greek myth of the Argonauts was associated with this place.

The museum pieces on display, such as imported and local-made plain and painted ceramics,terracotta figurines,objects of toreutics and goldwork,polychrome glass vessels,iron and bronze goods discovered in Pichvnari,Apsaros,Makho,Kapandibi and Tsikhisdziri , witness to close trade-economic and cultural relations with Classical world,as well as the  results of  Greek colonization,Roman and Byzantine expansion.

Collection of the museum  encloses  numerous interesting numismatic and glyptic objects made of gold,silver ,bronze and iron.Gold treasure of the museum  highlights  spesimens  of Colchian goldwork being one of the testimonies to the reports  of  Classical time authors about Colchis as a land “rich in gold”.