Archaeological Museum of Corfu
The Archaeological Museum of Corfu was established in 1967 in a two-storey modern building in the area of Garitsa. The land was donated by the city of Corfu. A few years later, it was expanded with the addition of two more exhibit halls in order to display more finds that came to light after archaeological excavations on the island. From 2012 to 2016, the building went under a major restoration to fullfill the current needs.
The Museum houses antiquities from the Temple of Artemis, the ancient city of Corfu and the rest of the island. Those exhibits offer to visitors the chance to familiarize themselves with the cultural heritage of the island from Prehistoric to Roman times through a rich collection of exhibits that includes important works of art as well as objects of everyday use, coming from different parts of the island.
The exhibition is housed on two floors. On the ground floor are exhibits from the Paleolithic to the Bronze Age as well as finds related to the foundation of the ancient city in the late 8th century BC. On the upper floor, there are four halls. Here, unfolds the historical course of Corfu from the 7th century BC until the 4th century AD. The finds come from the Agora (market), the harbors, the sanctuaries, the private houses, the workshops and the cemetery of ancient Corfu, as well as finds from other places of the island, such as Kassiopi, Acharavi, Almyros, Afionas and Roda.
Among the exhibits, the most important are the pediment of the temple of Artemis, where the goddess is portrayed as Gorgon, various funeral monuments of the same period, such as the 'Lion of Menecrates' from the end of the 7th century BC., the pediment of Dionysus, dated to 500 BC., four cases with coins found in excavations at various sites of Corfu and the important epigraphic monuments, such as the grave stele of Arniadas and the capital of Xemvares. The pediment of the Artemins temple is the oldest stone pediment in Greece dated to 590-580 BC and is described in the New York Times review of the museum as: the finest example of Archaic temple sculpture extant.