The museum from Călărași was founded in the year 1951. Between 1968 and 1987 it functioned as a history and archeology department of the County Museum Ialomița, and starting with 1987 it is a county museum which stands alone.
The museum’s building is an architecture monument starting with the end of the XIXth century. The permanent exposition presents to the public thematic expositions and rich collections of archeology (ceramics, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines, bake stones, tools, fragments of constructions from the neo-eneolithic from the archeological site Sultana – Malu Roșu, anthropomorphic plastic from the Roman Era, collection of Roman rush lights, enameled ceramics and Byzantine adornments from the Păcuiu lui Soare), antique and medieval numismatics, exhibits which illustrate the local history. The museum also holds ethnography collections and of modern and contemporary Romanian art. Starting with the date of the 9th of June 2012 it has been opened the Section “Thesaurus and archeology” of the Museum of Southern Danube Călărași. This fact made possible the display in premiere of some exceptional pieces which are part of the Museum’s thesaurus (coins, golden and silver adornments, etc.), patrimony which illustrates the evolution of the Danube communities from prehistory until the end of antiquity.
Starting with its foundation in the year 1951, the museum from Călărași had manifested a special interest for the tradition and the customs of these places, by field researches which led to the considerable growth of the ethnographic patrimony. Today, the Southern Danube Museum has in the development an important international program on a longer period, named “The rural establishment at the Southern Danube”, which wishes to constitute a revival of the Romanian popular traditions and of the rural life in the area of the Southern Danube. The temporary exposition space, from the premise of the ethnography and popular art department of the Museum of Southern Danube constitutes the ideal frame for realizing permanent expositions, where there are exhibited the most important pieces of ethnography for the rural life of these places in the XVIIIth century. In the over 50 years of existence of the ethnography collection, there have developed their activity at the Museum of Southern Danube a series of specialists in the field of ethnography: Niţă Anghelescu, Liviu Mihăilescu, Răzvan Ciucă, Elena Ciobănescu, Alexandru Vlădăreanu, Dorina Oarfă, Marian Burciu, Gabriel Bunghez.
Currently, the restoration activity is supported by two experts in ceramic restoration. The restoration activity is developed in the laboratory, as well as by the means of the mobile restoration laboratory, on the archeological developments from Grădiștea Coslogeni, Sultana Malu Roșu, Măriuța la Movilă, Căscioarele, Durostorum, etc.
