Arles Antiquities Museum

About

Plans for a museum of ancient Arles were first put forward in 1968, though it took twenty years before the first stone was laid. Construction began in 1988 on a building designed by architect Henri Ciriani, which opened in 1995. After opening, the museum expanded to include an auditorium and a Roman-style garden known as the Hortus. Its collection includes ancient sculpture — among them a bust identified as Julius Caesar — alongside more than 1,700 objects of daily life from antiquity. In 2011, a Roman-era barge measuring 31 meters, named Arles-Rhône 3, was raised from the Rhône River. An 800-square-meter extension was built to house it, displaying the barge together with roughly 500 objects related to trade and navigation.