The Museum of History and Ethnology of Terra da Maia is located in a building that served as the Town Hall until 1902, and whose origins probably date back to the 18th century.

It later functioned as a primary school, headquarters of the Castêlo da Maia Sports Club, headquarters of the Parish Council of Santa Maria de Avioso, Post Office and Civil Registry until its closure in 1998, due to works to adapt it to the Municipal Museum. However, the museum project for Terra da Maia, an administrative geographic unit between the Ave River and the Douro River, dates back to the 1960s, when a historical and archaeological exhibition was installed in the cloister of the Conventual Church of Moreira da Maia, but it was not until 2001 that the Museum of History and Ethnology of Terra da Maia was inaugurated, with a collection organized within the thematic areas of History and Ethnology.

Its mission is to provide access to information and the construction of knowledge, sensitive to the stimuli of the Mayan population and cultural diversity, through the development of mediation programs, giving the person and the community an active and participatory role in society, with a special attention to the construction, preservation and dissemination of the identity and heritage of Terra da Maia.

The basis of the Museum is the Moreira de Figueiredo ethnographic collection, collected in the municipality during the 1970s and 1980s, with the aim of recording, through objects, the most important aspects of rurality and local daily life. The collection, made up of around 200 objects, with an emphasis on the agro-labor cycles of flax and cereals and animal harness systems, was enriched with other materials related to traditional technologies used in the transport and lifting of water and with objects that document extinct trades and activities.

The historical collection aims to evoke aspects of the region’s past through objects that identify ideas and social phenomena. Ancient history is documented by an archaeological collection.

Tuesday to Saturday from 9:00 am to 12:30 pm | 2:00 pm to 5:30 pm

Closed on Mondays and holidays.