It is believed that trade contacts with the Phoenicians existed from the late 10th century, and it is even assumed that Tartessos was located at this site. In addition to objects made of silver, copper, iron, ivory and stone, many thousands of fragments of clay vessels were found during excavations from around 900 to 770 B.C. in 1998. Huelva was probably an early Phoenician emporium and it was flourishing under the Carthaginians and Romans, who began to mine ore deposits. Under the Visigoths and Arabs, from whom the city was reconquered by Alfonso X the Wise in 1257, the city came to a standstill.

In 1880 it still only had 13,000 inhabitants, then it grew fast. It owes its boom to the mineral deposits on the Rio Tinto (Minas de Riotinto), as from the last quarter of the 19th century, the town became a small British colony. The reason for this was the permission granted by the Spanish government in 1873 for the mines of Riotinto to be commercially developed and utilised by the Rio Tinto Company Limited. As a result, the town and its infrastructure began to grow and the sleepy little village became a modern industrial town of the 19th century and an elegant town in the first centuries of the 20th-

The British also brought football to Spain, which led to the founding of the first football club in Spain - Recreativo Huelva - in 1889.

The museum is very young and focuses on the impressive archaeological site of the province of Huelva with interesting exhibits from Roman and mining history. There is also an impressive collection of Spanish paintings.

Deity figures, made from bronze using lost wax.
8th-7th century BC


The figure to the right id representing the Egyptian god Reshef or the Syrian-Canaanite god Melqart. A threatening warrior god, Melqart is also considered by the Orientals to be the protector of maritime trade. The Phoenicians, in their expansion towards the West, established multiple sanctuaries dedicated to this god in the points of greatest commercial interest; one of them could have been in Huelva, an important emporium during this period.