Palacio Abacial Archaeological Museum

Palacio Abacial Archaeological Museum was rebuilt in 1781 by abbot Esteban Lorenzo de Mendoza y Gatica, due to the ramshackle state in which the original palace located inside the Fortress of la Mota was. The new building and facade were the result of the aggregation of several houses. This mansion maintained its use up to 1851. In this date the Abbey of Alcalá la Real was suppressed. After years of uncertain destination, it became abattial archive and residence of the Mr. Archpriest of the Ecclesiastical Territory.

In 1927 the building became municipal property, settling school classrooms and other services there. The Civil War caused it important damages that were restored to give it new uses. In 1959 the building housed the Centro Oficial de Patronato de Enseñanza Media (Secondary School), that will become, some years later, into the Instituto de Bachillerato "Alfonso XI". In 1995 the City Council and the Consejería de Obras Públicas de la Junta de Andalucía began the rehabilitation for giving it new uses in agreement to the cultural demand of the city.

Today, after four years of rehabilitation, the Abbatial Palace is the seat of the Municipal Museum. This new museum has been created with the intention of hosting for exhibition, conservation and distribution of funds rate archaeological, ethnological, anthropological, paleontological and scientific.

At the same time, the Palacio Abacial Archaeological Museum seeks to become a forum, encounter point and showcase where the new and advanced proposals related with the museum can be integrated where they will have space different exhibitions and activities, of itinerant and interactive character that you/they come to contribute to the diffusion of the own Museum and of the artistic and cultural patrimony.

The importance of this space in the museum responds to a double side. The first one, like an innovative centre of presentation of the patrimony and keeper of the vestiges of the past and the history of Alcalá la Real. The second one, as a way to discover the city and its environment.

The Museum is constituted, in this aspect, as an authentic agent of the cultural and tourist Patrimony.