The King D. Carlos Sea Museum is a

Maritime Museum A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the militar ...

in the fishing town of

Cascais Cascais () is a town and municipality in the Lisbon District of Portugal, located on the Portuguese Riviera. The municipality has a total of 214,158 inhabitants in an area of 97.40 km2. Cascais is an important tourism in Portugal, tourist de ...

Lisbon District Lisbon District ( pt, Distrito de Lisboa, ) is a district located along the western coast of Portugal. The district capital is the city of Lisbon, which is also the national capital. From its creation until 1926, it included the area of the cur ...

, in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. It was inaugurated in 1992.

Origins

The museum is housed in the former Cascais Sporting Club. This was founded in 1879 by the then Prince Carlos of Portugal to promote sports and host social events. Built on the former parade ground of the nearby

Citadel of Cascais The Citadel of Cascais is a set of fortifications built between the 15th and 17th centuries to defend the Cascais coastline and River Tagus estuary and to protect against attacks on the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. The citadel incorporates three ...

, the members, who came from the nobility, came to be known as “of the Parade”, compared with those who were “not of the Parade”. For a time the club was known as the Royal Sporting Club of Cascais but the use of “royal” was dropped after the establishment of the

First Portuguese Republic The First Portuguese Republic ( pt, Primeira República Portuguesa; officially: ''República Portuguesa'', Portuguese Republic) spans a complex 16-year period in the history of Portugal, between the end of the period of constitutional monarchy ...

. The club was disbanded in 1974. Its documentation is retained in the Cascais Municipal Archives, held at the nearby Casa Sommer.

The museum

In 1976, the building became the property of the Municipality of Cascais. Planning of the museum began in 1978 but it was not opened until 1992. It was expanded in 1997 with a new exhibition space devoted to maritime

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

, which aimed to increase understanding of the fishing community of Cascais. Further expansion was carried out in 2006 with the opening of a room dedicated to

underwater archaeology Underwater archaeology is archaeology practiced underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology, it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras. Its acceptance has ...

, primarily shipwrecks. Improvements continued in 2008 with the main octagonal room and the People of the Seas room, dedicated to the history and experiences of the fishing community of the town, with models of fisherfolk and examples of their clothing and nets. There is also a boat gallery with models of fishing boats and pleasure craft that once sailed in the

River Tagus The Tagus ( ; es, Tajo ; pt, Tejo ; see below) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales near Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally west with two main south-westward sections, to e ...

, which meets the sea close to Cascais. A further exhibit covers “King Carlos and Oceanographic Science”. This project was a collaboration of several institutions, including the Vasco da Gama Aquarium, the Portuguese Navy Museum, the

Natural History Museum of London The Natural History Museum in London is a museum that exhibits a vast range of specimens from various segments of natural history. It is one of three major museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the others being the Science Museum an ...

, and the

Oceanographic Museum The Oceanographic Museum (''Musée océanographique'') is a museum of marine sciences in Monaco-Ville, Monaco. This building is part of the Institut océanographique, which is committed to sharing its knowledge of the oceans. History The ...

of Monaco, among others, and reconstructs the main research activities of the king and his team aboard the yacht

Amélia IV ''Amélia IV'' was a passenger ship built in 1900 as SS ''Banshee''. As ''Amélia IV'', she served as the Royal yacht for the Portuguese monarch from 1901 to 1910. From 1910 to 1937 she served the Portuguese Navy as an auxiliary ship under the na ...

. Another exhibit relates to the Portuguese Navy and Navigation. Navigational instruments including compasses and lanterns, together with bronze gun dating from the seventeenth century, are displayed. A section is also devoted to

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic (''genetic variability''), species (''species diversity''), and ecosystem (''ecosystem diversity'') l ...

with models of mammals displayed including a

porcupinefish Porcupinefish are fish belonging to the family Diodontidae (order Tetraodontiformes), also commonly called blowfish and, sometimes, balloonfish and globefish. They are sometimes collectively called pufferfish, not to be confused with the morpholo ...

, a

Bottlenose skate The bottlenose skate, spearnose skate, or white skate (''Rostroraja alba'') is a species of skate in the family Rajidae. It is a benthic fish native to the coastal eastern Atlantic Ocean. Due to overfishing, it has been depleted or extirpated i ...

, various types of sharks including the sevengilled shark,

Atlantic bluefin tuna The Atlantic bluefin tuna (''Thunnus thynnus'') is a species of tuna in the family Scombridae. It is variously known as the northern bluefin tuna (mainly when including Pacific bluefin as a subspecies), giant bluefin tuna or individuals excee ...

, the

sperm whale The sperm whale or cachalot (''Physeter macrocephalus'') is the largest of the toothed whales and the largest toothed predator. It is the only living member of the genus ''Physeter'' and one of three extant species in the sperm whale famil ...

and the

pygmy sperm whale The pygmy sperm whale (''Kogia breviceps'') is one of two extant species in the family Kogiidae in the sperm whale superfamily. They are not often sighted at sea, and most of what is known about them comes from the examination of stranded speci ...

. The museum's collection of marine fossils is also exhibited as part of an exhibition entitled “The Sea and the Origin of Life”. This was developed through collaboration with foreign institutions and with researchers from the National Museum of Natural History and Science, which is attached to the

University of Lisbon The University of Lisbon (ULisboa; pt, Universidade de Lisboa, ) is a public research university in Lisbon, and the largest university in Portugal. It was founded in 2013, from the merger of two previous public universities located in Lisbon, th ...

References

{{Reflist Cascais