TIRANA, March 8/ATA/-The monuments and objects of the cultural heritage are arousing more and more the interest of the local and foreign tourists. Many tourists visit these places of attraction because they carry in themselves history and cultural values that show the roots and the past of our country.
The National Ethnographic Museum in Berat and National Iconographic Museum “Onufri” are still being visited by a great number of visitors in this early part of the year. Although these are the first two months of the year, when usually there is a low influx of visitors while the weather is not favourable, as compared to the same period last year, the influx of visitors to these monuments has been increased by more than 20%.
This is a significant signal indicating that in the coming months there will be a greater influx of visitors, especially foreign tourists.
The National Ethnographic Museum in Berat opened in 1979 in a house of traditional Berati architecture. It is a two-storey building with a garret room. The ground floor is desert. And the connection with the second floor is realized through a stone staircase built on stone arches.
The construction period dates back to the XVIII-th century. The building is designed and built by the local masters. The porch and the garret room take the main focus of the building. It contains original furniture and a number of household objects, wooden case, wall-closets, as well as chimneys and a well. Near the well is an olive press, wool press and many large ceramic dishes, revealing a glimpse of the historical domestic culture of Berat’s citizens.
The ground floor has a hall with a model of a medieval street with traditional shops on both sides and on the second floor is an archive, loom, village sitting room, kitchen and sitting room.
The museum has a rich fund of about 1200 objects.
The National Iconographic Museum “Onufri” is an Albanian national museum dedicated to Byzantine art and iconography in Berat, Albania. The museum is located inside the Church of the Dormition of St Mary in the castle quarter Berat since February 27, 1986. The museum was named to honour Onufri, an Albanian painting Headmaster of the 16th century.
The museum features on display 173 objects chosen from a fund of 1500 objects belonging to the fund of Albanian Churches and Monasteries as well as to Berat. The collection of the museum consists of 176 objects, 106 of which are icons and 67 are liturgical objects, and belong to the iconographic Albanian painters who created in the 14th – 20th centuries: Onufri, Nikola (Onufri’s son), Onouphrios Cypriotes, David Selenica, Kostandin Shpataraku, Çetiri’s (or Katro) tribe (Gjergj, Nikolla, Johani, Naumi, Gjergji junior) and many other anonymous painters./e.caushi/p.s./
