The archaeological museum of the Canavese occupies a former mill, at via Ivrea 100 in Cuorgnè. It opened in 2004 and takes up over 1,500 m² in the southern wing of the old works: a size you notice, because the route has room to breathe instead of squeezing into two rooms.
What to see
At the centre is a large area for temporary exhibitions; around it runs the permanent route, laid out in nine rooms, telling the history of the Canavese from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. The oldest evidence comes from the archaeological site of the Boira Fusca cave and concerns communities of hunters and gatherers of the late Palaeolithic. To the Neolithic belong stone necklaces and various artefacts, while from the Bronze Age survive the remains of a burial.
Visiting
The third room is the one worth slowing down for: it displays an intact beaker from a burial near the lake of Montalto, together with pottery, statuettes and several stone axes. The bulk of the collection concerns the Neolithic in any case, and that is the thread holding the rooms together.
Our editors' tip
It is worth checking which exhibition is on before setting out: the museum uses its central area continuously, and over the years it has hosted important loans, such as the Campanian finds that arrived for the show on Pompeii. Anyone coming for the Canavese Neolithic may find something quite different, and that is not necessarily a bad thing.