Museikon, Museum of Religious Art in Alba Iulia

Museikon is a museum dedicated to icons and old books, inside the Alba Carolina Citadel in Alba Iulia. The project began in February 2015 as a partnership between the Alba County Council, the National Museum of the Union, the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of Alba Iulia and the University of Bergen (Norway), and the complex was officially inaugurated in April 2017. The museum occupies a carefully restored historic monument building located within the Alba Carolina Citadel. The building, described as the first military hospital in Romania and one of the oldest buildings in the citadel, was restored and fitted with seven permanent exhibition spaces on the upper levels, three temporary exhibition spaces in the basement, restoration laboratories and a library. The collections, which come from the National Museum of the Union and the Orthodox Archdiocese of Alba Iulia, comprise 5,643 items: 3,633 old books, 679 icons on wood, 1,044 icons on glass and 287 other liturgical objects, most of them from the 18th and 19th centuries. Museikon is part of the National Museum of the Union complex and can be visited as part of the same cultural circuit in Alba Iulia. Did you know that during the restoration of the Museikon building, archaeologists uncovered part of the wall of the Roman legionary fortress of Apulum, home of the 13th Legion Gemina?