Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology opens after dark for European Night
By Zak Jackson, MonacoViews Editorial
The Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology welcomed visitors by torchlight this weekend as part of the European Night of Museums.
The Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology, tucked into the rock at the foot of the Exotic Garden, took part in the European Night of Museums on Saturday, opening its doors well after sunset for a torchlit visit through its prehistoric collections.
Guests moved through the galleries in near darkness, guided only by handheld torches, with the low light lending the fossils, tools and skeletal remains a quality they rarely carry under standard museum conditions. The format, replicated at participating institutions across Europe on the same evening, tends to draw visitors who would not normally seek out a prehistory museum, and the Monaco edition was no exception.
The museum holds one of the more significant collections of its kind in the region, drawing on finds from the Grimaldi caves along the nearby Ligurian coast. For residents who have not visited in some time, or at all, the nocturnal format offers a reason to look again at what is, by any measure, a serious scientific collection sitting quietly in one of the Principality's less-visited corners.