The Archeological Museum is open to the general public and is located in the center of downtown Oranjestad. The main entrance and part of the museum is housed in one of the oldest restored family homes in Aruba and this where two pasts intersect. This home belonged to the prominent Ecury family who lived in Aruba in the early 1920’s.
The Ecury family home might have been built in 1929, which date can still be seen today imprinted on the front of the house. One of the Ecury children was Segundo Jorge Adelberto Ecury, nicknamed “Boy.” He was born in Oranjestad, April 23, 1922. Son of a very successful businessman in Aruba, Boy lived in this house with his family until he was sent to boarding school in 1937 in The Netherlands.
When World War II broke out, The Netherlands was invaded by the Nazis and Boy Ecury joined the underground resistance movement to fight the Germans. Unfortunately, six months before Holland was liberated on May 5, 1945, Boy Ecury and others were captured and executed the following day on December 6, 1944. It is said that they were betrayed and ,when he was interrogated, Boy Ecury never gave up any names of other resistance fighters. His father went to The Netherlands after the war and brought back his remains for a proper burial with military honors.
Boy Ecury was awarded a Resistance Commemorative Cross posthumously and his statue is displayed in downtown Oranjestad. The Ecury home is one of the only few monuments left on Aruba and was an appropriate choice to house the Archeological Museum.
Aruba has a very rich cultural history, which goes back approximately 4000-5000 years where the first documentation of visitors was found; about 2500 years ago, the indigenous South American Indians most likely became the first inhabitants of Aruba.
The museum has been open to the public in this new location exactly one year and does not charge an entrance fee. It has several sections; visitors can go from one section to another without having to follow any sequence or wait in line to move to the next sections. The Ecury home was remodeled and combined with another more modern building and other older sections of the house, including a cistern used by the Ecury family to store rainwater underground.
The museum has displays and interactive corners, which can take a total of one to two hours to see. It outlines several different periods in the history of the island and how the original inhabitants lived, illustrated by many artifacts from these periods. One of the most important archeological finds in Aruba are skeletal remains. The largest burial ground was found in the area of Malmok where this site (ca 2000 BC) held skeletal remains of 18 females, 17 males and 5 children. One of these skeletons is currently displayed in the permanent exhibit at the museum.
About 1000 years ago. another group of migrating Indians commonly known as Caquetios came to Aruba from Venezuela. They remained here until 1515 and then were taken by the Spanish to work as slaves in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The Dutch and the British each had taken possession of Aruba for short periods of time between 1636 and 1816, which has influenced the population, its customs and language greatly.
Other excavations done on the island show the differences between the early visitors of 4000 plus years ago and the later inhabitants in terms of living customs, family units, way of life and level of development. Indians were still being buried in traditional ways up to 1840 and the last records of the original Indians ends around 1880.
Much of the museum includes artifacts and history of land-based excavations, but Aruba has also many interesting underwater archeology sites or artifacts of historical value and cultural heritage. Particularly with the influence of the Spanish, British and Dutch up to World War II, many wrecks and artifacts are still to be documented and the Archeology Museum will continue to expand and will try to protect and document the history of the island.
For more information and opening hours, please contact the Archaeological Museum of Aruba, located two blocks east of the Oranjestad bus station, tel. 297-582-8979/297-588-9961
Story courtesy of Aruba Today
Thursday, October 14th, 2010 
Magnifying the powerful physical design of the flower stalk from the Aruban Cuquisa also known as the ‘Sisal’ or ‘Tequila plant’ by placing them in a triangle in red’ is an artistic experiment of Desiree Rep-Sporkslede; Designed in 2009 the ‘RED FLAG’ was exhibited at the first GREEN CONFERENCE and science fair of last week, that hosted many intellectual speakers such as Prof. dr. Wubbo J. Ockels and former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore.
