Description of the attraction
The Archaeological Museum of Chania is housed in the building of the former Venetian Cathedral of St. Francis in the center of the old city along Halidon Street. The museum was founded in 1962. The artifacts on display in the museum give visitors a good idea of the development of the history of western Crete from the Neolithic era to Roman times.
It is not known for certain when the building was built, although there is written evidence of a large earthquake in 1595, which also mentions the Church of St. Francis. Today the museum building is an important historical monument of the city. During the Ottoman rule, the church was rebuilt into a mosque and named after Yusuf Pasha, the conqueror of Chania. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the building housed the Ideon Andron cinema. After the Second World War, until 1962 (when the building was transferred to the Archaeological Museum), there was a warehouse of military equipment. The archaeological collection of Chania was previously housed in various public institutions (Administration, Gymnasium for Boys, Hassan Mosque).
The museum contains an impressive collection of Minoan and Roman artifacts collected from the archaeological site of the city of Chania and the entire region. The exposition of the museum is presented in chronological order and includes ceramics, sculptures, figurines, weapons, gold jewelry, seals, coins, sarcophagi and other funerary artifacts, mosaics, clay tablets with inscriptions and much more.
Among the huge variety of museum expositions, it is worth highlighting the Roman mosaic floor with the image of Dionysus and Ariadne (2-3 century AD). Clay tablets with linear inscriptions (1450 - 1300 BC) also occupy an important place in the museum's collection. An interesting painted sarcophagus (1400-1200 BC) from the Minoan acropolis of Armenia and a bust of the Roman emperor Hadrian.
In 2000, Constantine and Marik Mitsotakis donated to the Archaeological Museum of the city of Chania a huge private collection of their family, which makes up a third of the entire exposition of the museum and is rich in rare historical relics.
Visiting the Archaeological Museum of the city of Chania, you can plunge into the atmosphere of the ancient city, follow how the lifestyle and traditions of the inhabitants of western Crete have changed, how their knowledge and skills have improved.
