Museums and Palaces

The Alcoutim Municipal Museum integrates several exhibition nuclei such as Ethnography, Archaeology, Local History and Ancient Art.

The Archaeology Museum Centre is installed inside Alcoutim Castle (Castelo de Alcoutim) and presents the exhibition "The Archaeological Heritage of Alcoutim", a historical journey imbued with a millenary memory which seeks to transmit cultures and knowledge which, in a more or less distant past, crossed the territory which is now Alcoutim.

On display here is the Timeless Games - Game Boards and Game Stones Collection, which includes the largest collection of board games from the Islamic era, as well as the only examples of Mancala known in Portugal. Discover this Collection from the archaeological excavations carried out in the Old Castle of Alcoutim (Castelo Velho de Alcoutim), composed of thirty-nine boards, complete and fragmented, and eighteen small game stones. Engraved on schist slabs, these boards belong to six different typologies: Alquerque, Tabula, Nine men's Morris or the mill game, Tic-tac-toe, Mancala and the Soldier’s Game.

Be sure also to visit the Old Castle, also known as Castle of Saint Barbara (Castro de Santa Bárbara), situated at the highest point of the town and offering one of the most wonderful views in the area. Considered one of the most remarkable monuments from the Islamic period in Portugal, the old castle is one of the most important Islamic military structures in the Algarve because of the levels of Muslim occupation it still retains, and various archaeological materials have been discovered here.