Museo Etnografico Sardo

With all my Christmas shopping completed, and with some time to spare this morning, I visited the Museo Etnografico Sardo which I have visited before, on a previous stay in Nuoro, but it was well worth a second visit. According to the guide it is the most important ethnographical museum in Sardinia and the only museum directly emanating from the Sardinian Regional Government. There are over 7,000 items in the museum's collection, comprised of jewellery, masks, popular musical instruments dating back to the 19th century etc, but among the most striking exhibits are the examples of popular Sardinian dress and costumes, especially those costumes used in some of  the festivals and parades that take place in Sardinia (as Heather Cowper has written about here in her travel blog). As she says, some of the costumes look rather sinister and nightmare-ish but are supposed to be symbols of good luck and abundance. These are the photos I took this morning while I was at the museum.