Africa-Press – Angola. The National Museum of Archeology of Benguela (MNAB) has an emblematic view of Praia Morena, whose building dates from the 17th and 18th centuries, once a former slave deposit where they left for the Americas.
Today, this place of bad memory houses more than nine thousand pieces of historical and archaeological interest and is a source of legends.
The building occupies a perimeter of 8 thousand square meters, built of limestone blocks, has massive iron gates and railings. After the end of the slave trade, the building became part of the Angola Customs.
In 1976, the National Museum of Archeology of Benguela was created in this building to conserve archaeological objects. Shortly thereafter, a team was created for archaeological research which, under the direction of its founder, the late conservative archaeologist, Luís Pais Pinto, began investigations throughout the national territory.
According to Maria Benjamim, the MNAB technicians were tireless in working on the ruins of the old house, now they have renewed positive energies, as it has a place where collections of objects or historical productions are kept that allow preserving the memory of various regions of the country.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that the museum is a place where important phases of the past and present are recorded. The museum has already classified about 50 archaeological sites in addition to the 16 known in the country. Since then, the museum’s fundamental activity has been archaeological research in addition to serving the public.
With a portfolio established in excavation, prospecting, surveying, inventory, classification, preservation and protection, all these aspects go through previously prepared methodologies.
For the director Maria Benjamim, the rehabilitation of the Museum created anxiety for the people from Benguela who over the years looked at the important degraded historical monument and which seemed to have no solution.
The rehabilitation and modernization of the establishment constitutes a line of change in the branch of archaeological science, which is concerned with obtaining information about societies and ancient forms of human organization through the study of historical evidence.
Museum Collection
The National Museum of Archeology is a public, non-profit establishment, of a scientific, technical, cultural and educational nature, whose purpose is to ensure the inventory, preservation, investigation, enhancement and dissemination of the scientific and cultural production of the cultural and natural heritage of the country.
It presents an exhibition of lithic instruments (choppers, cores, bifaces and flakes), ceramics, shark teeth (Megalodon), beads and macutes, which are now better accommodated.
The prehistoric shark tooth found by a research group at the Dungo XIII station, in Baía Farta, belonged to a giant Megalodon that could be thousands of years old.
It also includes the rehabilitation of a Land Rover brand vehicle, offered by the first President of Angola, António Agostinho Neto, a means of transport that served to carry out work in the field, in research, being one of the historical references of the institution.
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