The idea of establishing a museum in Pruszków emerged in the early 1970s. The endeavour was launched by the then Heritage Conservation Officer for the Warsaw Voivodship – Stefan Woyda; the impulse to create such an institution came from his discovery, at the end of the 1960s, of the so-called Mazovian Centre of Metallurgy. The museum would assist in advanced archaeological exploration of this newly uncovered phenomenon and in its popularisation, neither being possible without appropriate institutional support. The choice of Pruszków as the seat was not accidental, as the town is located in the centre of the area of iron smelting activity in Antiquity. A major factor in Pruszków’s favour was the supportive stance of its inhabitants and the helping hand extended by the then City Fathers who, among others, provided the Museum with a 19th-century outbuilding of the Potulicki Family Manor. The institution opened on the 1st of June 1975, with Stefan Woyda as its Director, a post he held for over three decades. Since 2006, the Museum has been headed by Dorota Słowińska-Kamasa.

The Museum’s collection consists of archaeological finds from the Mazovian region of Poland, dating from the Palaeolithic up to the Modern Age. The bulk of the collection are objects discovered during the Museum’s exploration of the Mazovian Centre of Metallurgy (settlements at Biskupice, Milanówek-Falęcin, Brwinów and Reguły) and areas adjacent to Mazovia (settlements at Kraśnicza Wola and Młochów). An important element are photographs taken as part of PAR (Polish Archaeological Record) at close to 4,000 sites – documenting surface surveys carried out by Stefan Woyda and his co-workers. The Museum also holds artefacts from excavations carried out by various institutions and private entities, handed over to the Museum by the Heritage Conservator of the Mazovian Voivodship. Most of these objects come from western Mazovia (settlements at Regów, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, cemetery at Stare Babice and Cząstkowo Polskie) as well as other parts of the region (cemeteries at Kleszewo, Łajskie and Lemany) dated to the period of the Mazovian Centre of Metallurgy’s operation.

www.mshm.pl