The Museum of Resita is a young institution in the constellation of Banat’s museums, which appeared after the middle of the last century. It saw daylight at the initiative of the social civil society in the industrial town of Resita, on the Barzava River. In 1957, the „Committee for the museum’s foundation” appeared within the Machine Plant, a trust which united the metallurgical and the machine-building units. The donations of private collections represented the basis of the new museum construction in Resita, which was inaugurated in winter 1959. The Museum of Resita was recognised as such by the act of March 1962 of the Romania’s Ministry of Education and Culture. The first director of Resita’s Museum was Professor Octavian Raut, who was also the initiator of the first archaeological diggings on the Barzava valley at the Roman camp of Berzovia, and the Roman farm of Ramna.

In 1968, after the administrative reorganisation of Romania in counties, the museum of Resita has become the History Museum of Caras-Severin County. Thus, an institution was founded, which developed the research and conservation activity of the cultural heritage, for a geographical and administrative space of 9,000 km2. The scientific and museum activity was supported with very good performances by a group of young historians and archaeologists from 1976 and consolidated in the following years.

Since 1997, the standard denomination of the museum in Resita was changed, it becomes the Museum of the Mountainous Banat with the approval of the local and government authorities. The development in force of the city during the Communist period has unfortunately marked the destiny of the museum as well, which was forced to move its headquarters and heritage in many locations, from 1976 until 1987, when the present construction of the Museum was partly finished. The permanent exhibition organised on the basis of its own collections was re-opened in 2000, the Museum of Resita, thus, exerting its vital functions. In the post-Communist period, the museum was integrated in the cultural current of this European and Danubian space by researches, exhibitions, international scientific conferences and European programs.