MUSA, salt museum
The MUSA, Cervia salt museum, was created to keep alive the memory of working in the salt pan and has collected documents, tools and photos that testify to the environment and the production of salt. It is an ethnographic museum that places man and his culture at the center. Musa is recognized as a Quality Museum of the Emilia Romagna Region. It was inaugurated with a renewed look in 2004 and permanently placed inside the tower salt warehouse in via Nazario Sauro. The museum's objective is the protection, conservation and enhancement of objects, images and documents witnessing the salt civilization. The museum aims to be a place of stimulation and reflection as well as a location for useful services to the city, its guests and the general public.
A meeting place, cultural growth and research, it preserves, enhances and promotes the study and knowledge of the material and intangible heritage of the city in order to preserve the memory and stimulate interest in the past and in the history of the city. The museum develops through paths that explore the evolution of landscapes and the community. Through the stimulation of the senses one experiences the adventure of history, of salt production, of man's work, of social life. Inside the museum some particularly interesting and singular pieces stand out such as the burchiella, a flat-bottomed iron boat used until the end of the 1950s for the transport of salt. Of great interest are the ancient wooden tools used for the production and harvesting of salt, the images of the salt workers at work, objects and everything that revolves around the production of salt and the ancient salt pan.
In 2013 MUSA opened an archaeological section that houses important finds that trace the history of the places, including a fragment of a funerary stone with a medusa's head dating back to the I-II century, anchor and copper container of the early medieval ship ( VI-VII century) discovered in a sand quarry in 1956 and the mosaic carpets of the Church of San Martino prope litus maris (VI century), an important discovery in 1989 in an area adjacent to the salt pans.
An integral part and open-air section of the museum is the Camillone salt pan , the last of the handcrafted salt deposits existing before 1959 when the structural and functional transformation of the Cervesi salt mines took place. Kept active by the volunteers of the Saline Civilization Cultural Group, Camillone still produces salt with the ancient artisanal system of multiple collection that takes place every day by alternating the basins.
The Cervia salt has been recognized as a Slow Food Presidium since 2004. On 22 December 2018, the Musa was named after Agostino Finchi, a salt worker who strongly wanted the creation of a museum that would remember and enhance the civilization of salt.
A meeting place, cultural growth and research, it preserves, enhances and promotes the study and knowledge of the material and intangible heritage of the city in order to preserve the memory and stimulate interest in the past and in the history of the city. The museum develops through paths that explore the evolution of landscapes and the community. Through the stimulation of the senses one experiences the adventure of history, of salt production, of man's work, of social life. Inside the museum some particularly interesting and singular pieces stand out such as the burchiella, a flat-bottomed iron boat used until the end of the 1950s for the transport of salt. Of great interest are the ancient wooden tools used for the production and harvesting of salt, the images of the salt workers at work, objects and everything that revolves around the production of salt and the ancient salt pan.
In 2013 MUSA opened an archaeological section that houses important finds that trace the history of the places, including a fragment of a funerary stone with a medusa's head dating back to the I-II century, anchor and copper container of the early medieval ship ( VI-VII century) discovered in a sand quarry in 1956 and the mosaic carpets of the Church of San Martino prope litus maris (VI century), an important discovery in 1989 in an area adjacent to the salt pans.
An integral part and open-air section of the museum is the Camillone salt pan , the last of the handcrafted salt deposits existing before 1959 when the structural and functional transformation of the Cervesi salt mines took place. Kept active by the volunteers of the Saline Civilization Cultural Group, Camillone still produces salt with the ancient artisanal system of multiple collection that takes place every day by alternating the basins.
The Cervia salt has been recognized as a Slow Food Presidium since 2004. On 22 December 2018, the Musa was named after Agostino Finchi, a salt worker who strongly wanted the creation of a museum that would remember and enhance the civilization of salt.