National Archeology Museum

The building where it operates is a work from the 17th / 18th century, where slaves were temporarily stored until they were exported to America on slave ships.
It occupies a perimeter of 8,000 m2 and was built with limestone blocks, featuring gates and solid iron railings.
After the end of the slave trade, the building came to belong to the Customs of Angola.
In 1976, the National Museum of Archaeology of Benguela was established in this building, initially to preserve the existing archaeological objects.
Shortly thereafter, a team for archaeological research was created which, under the direction of its founder, the archaeologist and conservator Luís Pais Pinto, began investigations throughout the national territory.
In twenty-eight years of work, the museum has discovered around 50 archaeological sites in addition to the 16 previously known.
Since then, the museum's fundamental activity has been archaeological research, in addition to public service.

Objectives
The museum is an institution of a scientific nature, dedicated to research, training of personnel, conservation, and archaeological information.
Through its permanent and temporary exhibitions, as well as traveling ones, the Museum showcases the results of its research work.
Collection It has 50 archaeological sites discovered after independence and 16 before independence; 49 of these sites are located in the Benguela region and were discovered by the MNAB research brigade since 1976. The last one is located in Luanda.

The Collection
It consists of 9,147 inventoried items, namely: pebbles, choppers, chopping tools, bifaces, picks, scrapers, small axes, flakes, blades, cleavers, cores, Levallois, precursors, grinding stones, fossilized and non-fossilized bones, ceramics, beads made from oyster shells, macuta coins, etc.
The material ranges from the Paleolithic to the mid-modern age.
Auxiliary Services
In addition to the exhibition room, the Museum has an administrative area, 3 wings (underutilized) inside, two restroom areas and storage, a landscaped area (garden), a laboratory, and a library.

Education and Cultural Animation
The MNAB fundamentally has an educational and instructional character.
Within its activities, it has sought to disseminate the results of archaeological research in various ways such as: lectures, meetings, and traveling exhibitions in schools at various levels, as well as in other public institutions and through the media.
The education and instruction of young people has been the central focus of its activities, aiming to convey the importance of archaeological activity, particularly with regard to the material sources studied by archaeology, as an indispensable source for obtaining information about the past of the most distant civilizations of the territory that is now Angola.
Many visitors, both national and foreign, have come to the MNAB, individually and in groups.
Most visitors who come to the MNAB are students seeking to develop and deepen their knowledge through exhibitions open to the public and by consulting the bibliography available in the library.

Exhibitions
After archaeological research, the assembly of exhibitions is the predominant function of the MNAB and is the responsibility of the Department of Education and Cultural Animation.
Exhibitions are generally temporary (from 4 to 6 months), and their themes have been fascinating and are usually the result of archaeological research or related to aspects of the cultural values of Angola’s different ethnic groups.
Through the themes presented, the museum seeks to develop in young people intellectual capacities that enable them to value Angola’s vast historical and cultural heritage.
The assembly of exhibitions is limited to the reduced space of the museum’s main atrium, as there are currently no other available spaces, but these will become a reality in the future.