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CHURCH OF ST. DONAT IN ZADAR
As the state museological institution it covers the area of the District of Zadar, together with the islands of Pag and Rab. Within the Museum there are several departments such as: prehistoric, ancient, medieval and submarine archaeological units, the technical unit, the Library and others, as also the joint Archaeological collection in Nin. There are more than 100,000 various items displayed in Zadar Archaeological Museum coming from all cultural and historical periods from the Palaeolithic time to the end of the 11th century. The Museum activities are the systematic, protective and sonde archaeological excavations, the protection, documentation and presentations of the archaeological findings of all kinds, the organisation of exibitions and hosting various temporary exibitions. The Archaeological museum publishes also its annual magazine "Diadora", whome 17 editions with more than 5,000 pages of scientific papers have been published so far, including the work of our scholars and foreign ones. The Archaeological Museum is particulary proud of his production of archaeological copies and reproductions made of ceramic, gypsum, stone, glass and metal.
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Formerly
the church of St. Donat is one of the most famous monuments in Zadar.
It has been built in the earyl 9th century in the early Byzantine
tradition in rough pre-romanesque style of the Early Middle Ages.
The church repeats the so-called type of hall round churches appearing
all around Europe at that time. Among them it distinguishes with
particular originallity with no direct model. It is located in the
central part of the historical core of Zadar, it used to be an integral
part of the Episcopal complex and served for the religious purposes
until 1798. 
The
Archaeological museum Zadar was founded in 1832 (second considering
the age of all museums in Croatia) at first as part of the National
museum and than became autonomous around the 1880. Today the museum
is situated in a modern building from the 1972. It consist in three
great exposition halls. On the ground floor are exibited the archaeological
remains showing the development of the material and spiritual culture
of the Croats from the beginning of the 7th to the beginning of
the 12th century. On the first floor are exibited numerous objects
illustrating the life in northern Dalmatia at the arrival of the
Romans (momentary the exibition is closed and this hall is destined
to various periodical exibitions). On the second floor is exibited
the prehistorical archaeological material from the older Stone age
around 10,000 B.C. to the arrival of the Romans.