The museum is housed in the school complex founded by the mining engineer Sebastiano Mottura, at Viale della Regione 71 in Caltanissetta. Inside its wooden and glass cabinets shine more than 2,500 mineral samples (mostly pure sulphur with “strawberry” crystals, alabastrine gypsum, and blue celestine extracted from the mines of Gessolungo, Trabonella, and Floristella), displayed alongside 1,500 fossils catalogued in stratigraphic sequence from the Silurian to the Quaternary. Highlights include a jawbone of Elephas mnaidriensis, gigantic Swabian ammonites, and an amethyst geode studded with radial calcite. A unique meteorite donated by the Negus of Ethiopia recalls the international echo that Sicily’s “yellow gold” had between the 19th and 20th centuries.
Alongside the teaching showcases, a multimedia itinerary displays scale models of extraction headframes, Decauville mine carts, carbide lamps, and Gill furnace models: authentic artifacts that explain the sulphur processing cycle and the daily toil of the carusi, the boys tasked with carrying heavy blocks of ore on their shoulders. Historical panels recount technological evolution, underground tragedies, and the first labor struggles, while archival videos restore the hoarse voices of the sulphur miners. An interactive microscope makes the experience even more engaging, allowing visitors to observe crystal sections and recognize the typical paragenesis of the Miocene gypsum-sulphur formation.
Thanks to the joint management of the Municipality and the “Sebastiano Mottura” Institute, the museum is open Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with Sunday openings by reservation and easy access for visitors with disabilities. Looking out from the hall’s large windows, the gaze extends toward the hills once dotted with headframes and chimneys, ideally reconnecting the exhibited artifacts with the mining landscape that produced them, offering tourists a rich immersion in science, history, and identity at the heart of inland Sicily.