Naxos Archaeological Museum

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Naxos Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological museum itself, declared an historical monument, is part of the Naxos’s interesting and varied history. Housed in a building that is part of the Venetian Castle, or, as is known on the island as “inside the walls” of the Kastro district, the Archaeological museum is testament to the continued utilization of the castle. In fact, before it housed the museum, the five-story building, originally built during the island’s Frankish period (1600-1800), was designed to house a school of Jesuits (17th century). It ultimately, in the 19th century, became a highly esteemed commercial school that Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis attended for a year as a teenager.

Today, the Archaeological museum – divided into seven halls and terrace, boasts a collection of items and artifacts from the many and significant excavations that have taken place on Naxos and nearby Cycladic islands. The Archaeological museum's collection includes specimens of Proto-Cycladic marble idols, ceramic finds belonging to the late Mycenaean era, funerary offerings made of gold, silver and copper, glass objects of the Roman period, parts of statues and sarcophagi, as well as bronze weapons and tools.

 The collections of Early Cycladic marble figurines is second to only to that of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and there are also some very fine collections of vases dating from the Mycenaean (late 2nd millennium BC) and Geometric periods (9th - 8th c. B.C.). The first floor has an impressive collection of archaic statues of male and female figures (Kouros, Kore) as well as sculptures from the Roman period from the 6th century B.C.