The museum functions in the building of the Magna Curia Palace, built in the 16th century, the oldest historic monument in Deva. Looking like a bastion, the palace was built as a holiday house by Francisc Geszty, in 1582. It was turned by Gabriel Bethlen in 1621 into a Renaissance-style building, only later to acquire a prevailing Baroque aspect when, in the 18th century, monumental stairs towards the park and a plurilobular balcony were added. Between the castle and the fortress of Deva, located on the top of the hill, there used to be tunnels meant for withdrawal in case of siege, but which are collapsed nowadays. In 1918, the Bethlen Castle was passed in the property of the Romanian state and since 1938 the History Museum of Hunedoara County was established there. The Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilizations has one of the most valuable archeological collections in Romania, as well as numismatic, ethnographic, natural science and art collections. The library has over 40.000 volumes. At present, the museum is in course of reorganization, the only permanent exhibition being the lapidarium, organized behind the building, and which houses important antique inscriptions and tombstones. Temporary exhibitions are also organized.
Museums
The Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization Deva, Deva
The Museum of Ethnography and Popular Art, Orăștie
It is located at no. 1 Aurel Vlaicu Square, and it was founded in 1952 as a history museum of Orăștie Borough. In 1973 it became a Museum of Popular Art, and since 1990 it is a department of the Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization Deva. The museum exhibits representative aspects of rural life in Hunedoara county, mostly those in the area of Orăştie. The basic exhibition is thematically organized in 6 halls, covering the main occupations (agriculture, herding), secondary occupations (picking from nature, hunting, fishing, bee keeping, wood processing, weaving, hide processing), archeological and numismatic collections, as well as aspects related to the popular costumes, traditions and customs, religion and spiritual life. The museum hosts the most important ethnographic collection of Hunedoara County.
The Museum of Archeology, Sarmizegetusa
The museum of Sarmizegetusa is a section of the Museum of Dacian and Roman Civilization of Deva; it has an important archeological collection and manages the archeological park Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa. The institution was founded in 1924 by Constantin Daicoviciu as a result of resuming the archeological diggings, and in 1982 the museum was moved in a new location, next to the school, at the very gateway from Hațeg. The museum’s archeological collection includes epigraphic and sculptural monuments, mosaics, pieces of murals, weapons, silver, bronze, bone, ceramics, glass artifacts and numismatics. Other attractions of the museum are the replicas of military and civil outfits, exhibited on mannequins.
The Hațeg Village Museum, Peșteana
The museum is located in commune Densuș, in a traditional wooden house, belonging to a local, Uncle Antonică. His collection includes novel objects from old village life, objects used in the household, such as the net for keeping fish, made of trellised wire, the spice crusher, which is nothing but a piece of stone appropriately shaped, or the iron spikes to be attached as crampons to the boot soles when icy. The little old house with a porch has steps made of Roman stone and, in the yard, there is a Roman sarcophagus.
The Museum of Hațeg county, Hațeg
The Museum of Haţeg county is located in the center of the town of Hațeg, next to the bridge crossing the Galbena river. It was inaugurated on the 24th January 2005, in the Culture House of Haţeg. The exhibition includes traditional clay pots, popular costumes, spoons and vessels carved in wood and musical instruments or handmade toys.
The Gold Museum, Brad
The mineralogical collection of Brad, also known as the Gold Museum, belongs to the Bradmin Branch of the National Company “MINVEST” of Deva and it was founded over 100 ears ago. The collection, unique in Europe, has over 2000 exhibits from countries from all the continents: tools and old objects used in the extraction and processing of gold ore, specific for the last two centuries, but also archeological objects that prove activities of gold extraction since 2000 year ago. What really stand out are the exhibits of native gold (gold nuggets) from the Metaliferi Mountains.
Aurel Vlaicu Memorial Complex
Aurel Vlaicu (1882 – 1913) was a Romanian engineer, inventor and pioneer of Romanian and world aviation. The “Aurel Vlaicu” Complex Memorial includes the Memorial House, inaugurated in 1952, The Memorial Museum, located in a new building, raised in 1982, and the bust-monument between the two buildings, inaugurated in 1933. The memorial house, in which Aurel Vlaicu and his family lived, preserves most of the initial aspect. In the yard, the shed and the barn are still kept and inside the house there are various objects that belonged to the family, a gramophone, a tape recorder, telephone membranes, the boiler built by Vlaicu, project blueprints of personal inventions. The memorial hosts a collection of objects related to Aurel Vlaicu’s activity as an aviator and inventor: models of the flying machines he built, installations and tools he used, the helmet and costume he wore on his last flight, pieces of the plane that crashed on 13th September 1013 near Câmpina.