The Archeological Museum of Tarragona first came into being during the first half of the 19th century, making it the oldest in Catalonia in its particular field.

Although some of the pieces which currently make up the Museum's collection have been known since the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries (or since even earlier periods), most of its contents have been recovered in the last hundred and fifty years as a consequence of the building of the modern port and of the city's extraordinary urbanistic growth. After the loss or dispersal of the first collections of archeological materials, the earliest direct predecessor of the museum was the "Museo de Antigüedades" created on the premises of the Academia de Dibujo (Drawing Academy, which was maintained by the Societat Económica de Amigos del País de Tarragona) which was managed by Vicenç Roig around 1834-1837; this museum became a public institution when it came under the jurisidiction of the Comisión provincial de Monumentos, an official body set up in 1844. In 1849 this museum was merged with another which had been created by the Sociedad Arqueológica Tarraconense using materials collected mainly from the work being done at the port quarry, with both entities sharing the same premises; 1852 saw the appearance of the first catalogue of all of the items displayed in this museum. Special mention should be made of the work of excavation and recovery undertaken by the first head of the Archeological Museum, Bonaventura Hernández Sanahuja, a task reflected in the second catalogue, published in 1894.

In 1853 the Museum moved into premises owned by the ex-convent of Saint Domingo, in the Plaça de la Font, a square which was soon to host both the City Council and the Diputation. After a series of hitches and difficulties which caused the Museum to be closed down on occasion, it finally became a permanent fixture, and remained in the building on the Plaça de la Font for over a hundred years.In 1960, it was transferred to its current premises, built as a new floor housing the Museum on top of a section of the city wall.

The collections displayed in the Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona are predominantly Roman. The historical and monumental importance of the city of Tarraco and the urban archeological difficulties created by the site, have meant that the Museum's efforts at research have focussed especially on this particular historical period.

The materials have come mainly from public and private building projects, from casual finds, and from private contributions, at least until the third decade of the twentieth century. This tendency changed considerably due to the methodical excavation work carried out by Joan Serra i Vilaró in the Colonial Forum and the Early-Christian Necropolis (1925-1933). After a brief interlude due to the Civil War and the immediate post-war period, the city underwent a rapid ñand poorly controlledñ expansion in the course of the 1950s and, above all, during the 1960s and a considerable part of the 1970s: this meant that casual finds again took the upper hand, apart from some excavations in highly specific areas (Amphitheatre, Centcelles, "Torre de Pilats", Els Munts, the Plaça d'en Rovellat, and so on). Since 1978, and, in particular, since the creation of the Catalan Autonomous Governments's Archeological Service (1981), archeological activities ñeither programmed or urgentñ have become almost the only source of incoming material to our Museum, with a considerable increase of artefacts coming from the most important monuments and from other areas of interest in the city and its outskirts (Theatre, Casa del Mar, Circus, Parc de la Ciutat, Amphitheatre, Carrer d'en Vila-roma, Carrer de Pere Martell, and so on).

As such the Museum has become a centre for the preservation and dissemination of material testimony which illustrates the Romanisation process of the Iberian Peninsula and which, without a doubt, has served to help us understand the way of life of this period. In 1982 the Museu Nacional Arqueològic de Tarragona came under the aegis of the Catalan Autonomous Government's Department of Culture.

The Museum's organisation currently includes the following centres: the Archeological Museum, the Early-Christian Necropolis and Museum, the Central Services building, the Els Munts Roman villa (Altafulla) and the Roman villa and mausoleum at Centcelles (Constantí).