Museos de Mequinenza

Museos de Mequinenza comprises three museum spaces in the town of Mequinenza (Zaragoza): the Mining Museum, the Mequinenza History Museum and the Prehistoric Past Museum. The aim is to raise awareness of the town’s mining and historical heritage and of the Old Town of Mequinenza in particular, which was partially flooded when two dams were built on the River Ebro. The village was located between the two hydroelectric plants and the part that was not flooded was demolished in the 1970s. A completely new village was built a few kilometres from the old one. Museos de Mequinenza also aims to highlight the important artistic legacy of writer Jesús Moncada and the tangible and intangible heritage related to the three rivers flowing nearby. The History Museum is housed in the María Quintana School, which was built in 1927 and was once home to the schools in the Old Town of Mequinenza. The Prehistoric Past Museum, aimed at a younger audience, explores the prehistorical ages in a single space with faithful recreations of archaeological sites such as Los Castellets and Vall Major. Visitors can also see examples of rock art found in Mequinenza, which forms part of the Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin and has been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The mining museum, allocated in a real mine, preserves stories of coal mining and showcases the Mequinenza coal basin’s mining heritage, showing visitors how the systems used to extract coal have changed over the centuries.