The museum in Budva Old Town, located in an early 19th century building, has a permanent exhibition of its archaeological and ethnographic collections, while the ground floor of the museum boasts a lapidarium featuring valuable stone exhibits.
The archaeological collection includes the many objects discovered during archaeological excavations in Budva (Hellenic gold, different types of vases, jewellery, ornaments, tools, and cutlery, glass and clay objects, silver dishes etc) of various sites dating back to the 5th century BC, which combine the cultures of the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Slavs in this region. Especially valuable are a pair of gold earrings and a brooch with an engraving of an eagle with a little boy in his claws, which is associated with the Greek myth of Zeus and Ganymede.
The ethnographic collection includes a large number of exhibits from this region dated between the 18th and early 20th centuries. The archaeological collection boasts over 1,200 relics and the ethnological collection of more than 450 different exhibits.
References:The Church of St Donatus name refers to Donatus of Zadar, who began construction on this church in the 9th century and ended it on the northeastern part of the Roman forum. It is the largest Pre-Romanesque building in Croatia.
The beginning of the building of the church was placed to the second half of the 8th century, and it is supposed to have been completed in the 9th century. The Zadar bishop and diplomat Donat (8th and 9th centuries) is credited with the building of the church. He led the representations of the Dalmatian cities to Constantinople and Charles the Great, which is why this church bears slight resemblance to Charlemagne's court chapels, especially the one in Aachen, and also to the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. It belongs to the Pre-Romanesque architectural period.
The circular church, formerly domed, is 27 m high and is characterised by simplicity and technical primitivism.