The Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (MNA), with very vast collections, was conceived by its founder, José Leite de Vasconcelos, as a “Museum of the Portuguese Man seeking to gather material elements that contribute to the full knowledge of human life... everything that characteristically defines our people”.

Throughout its history, the MNA has accumulated a remarkable collection, distributed by very diverse nuclei: archeology, ethnography, jewelery, numismatics and medals, pre-Latin and Latin epigraphy, sculpture, written documentation, mosaics, physical anthropology, etc.

These nuclei are complemented by notable foreign "comparative collections", archeological and ethnographic (with particular emphasis on those from Ancient Egypt and the Portuguese Royal House), and various legacies and donations.

The main part of its collection, however, consists of vast collections of Portuguese Archeology from the pre and proto-historic, Roman, Arabic and medieval periods.