Museums of Athens

The most important museums of Athens include: The National Archaeological Museum, the largest archaeological museum in the country, and one of the most important internationally, as it contains a vast collection of antiquities; its artifacts cover a period of more than 5,000 years, from late Neolithic Age to Roman Greece.

• Museums of Athens at-a-glance

» Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum focused on the findings from the Acropolis of Athens. The museum was built to house every artifact found on the rock and on its feet, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also lies on the archaeological site of Makrygianni and the ruins of a part of Roman and early Byzantine Athens …

» Museum of the Ancient Agora

The Stoa of Attalos houses the Museum of the Ancient Agora. Its exhibits are mostly connected with the Athenian democracy. The collection of the museum includes clay, bronze and glass objects, sculptures, coins and inscriptions from the 7th to the 5th century BC, as well as pottery of the Byzantine period and the Turkish occupation. …

» Benaki Museum

The Benaki Museum, established and endowed in 1930 by Antonis Benakis in memory of his father Emmanuel Benakis, is housed in the Benakis family mansion in downtown Athens, Greece. The museum houses Greek works of art from the prehistorical to the modern times, an extensive collection of Asian art, hosts periodic exhibitions …

» Byzantine and Christian Museum

The Byzantine and Christian Museum is situated at Vassilissis Sofias Avenue in Athens, Greece. It was founded in 1914 and houses more than 25,000 exhibits with rare collections of pictures, scriptures, frescoes, pottery, fabrics, manuscripts and copies of artifacts from the 3rd century AD to the late medieval era …

» Museum of the City of Athens

Museum of the City of Athens Vouros - Eutaxias is a museum in Athens, Greece. It houses a collection of a variety of Athens-related items collected by art collector Lambros Eutaxias (1905-1996). It includes antiquities, byzantine art, sculptures, paintings, drawings, photographs and metal, glass and textile works …

» Museum of Cycladic Art

The Nicholas P. Goulandris Foundation - Museum of Cycladic Art is one of the great museums of Athens. It houses a magnificent collection of artifacts of Cycladic art. The museum was founded in 1986 in order to house the collection of Cycladic and Ancient Greek art belonging to Nicholas and Dolly Goulandris …

» Epigraphical Museum of Athens

The Epigraphical Museum of Athens, Greece, is the third-largest museum of ancient inscriptions in the world. Its collection comprises 13,500 inscriptions, mostly Latin, from early historical times to the Late Roman period. It is situated in the south wing of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Four of its rooms are accessible to visitors, while the rest is reserved for researchers. A full photographic archive of the collection is being assembled for future visitors …

» Museum of Greek Folk Art

The Museum of Greek Folk Art is a museum in Athens, Greece. The museum was founded in 1918 as the Museum of Greek Handicrafts in the Tsisdarakis Mosque in Monastiraki. In 1973 the most of the collection and the main functions of the museum were moved to 17 Kydanthinaion Str. in Plaka and the mosque was annexed to it …

» Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum

Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum is a museum in Athens, Greece, created by the renowned Greek jewellery designer Ilias Lalounis. It is comprised by 24 collections of a total of over 4,000 jewels and small ornaments dedicated to the history and art of jewellery making. The permanent exhibition displays 3000 pieces designed in the period 1940-1992 …

» Kerameikos Archaeological Museum

Archaeological Museum of Kerameikos is located in a small neoclassical building that houses the most extensive collection of burial-related artifacts in Greece, varying from large-scale marble sculpture to funerary urns, stelae, jewelry, toys etc. The original burial monument sculptures are displayed within the museum, having been replaced by plaster replicas in situ. The museum incorporates inner and outer courtyards, where the larger sculptures are kept …

» Municipal Gallery of Athens

The Municipal Gallery of Athens is a museum in Athens, Greece. It houses a rich collection of nearly 3,000 works from leading 19th- and 20th-century Greek artists. Formerly located on Peiraios Street on Eleftherias (Koumoundourou) Square, in October 2010 the gallery moved three blocks northwest to the corner of Myllerou and Leonidou streets on Avdi Square in Metaxourgeio …

» National Archaeological Museum

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens houses some of the most important artifacts from a variety of archaeological locations around Greece from prehistory to late antiquity. It is considered one of the great museums in the world and contains the richest collection of artifacts from Greek antiquity worldwide …

» National Historical Museum

The Old Parliament building at Stadiou Street in Athens, housed the Greek Parliament between 1875 and 1932. It now houses the country's National Historical Museum of Athens. The site was occupied originally by the house of the Athenian magnate and politician, Alexandros Kontostavlos. After Athens became the capital of Greece in 1833, King Otto selected it as temporary residence …

» Numismatic Museum

The Numismatic Museum in Athens is one of the most important museums of Greece and houses one of the greatest collections of coins, ancient and modern, in the world. The museum itself is housed in the former mansion of Heinrich Schliemann, the famous archaeologist, formally known as Iliou Melathron (Palace of Ilion). The museum was founded in 1838, around the same era with the National Archaeological Museum …

» Museum of Pavlos and Alexandra Kanellopoulou

The Museum of Pavlos and Alexandra Kanellopoulou is a museum of antiquities in Athens, Greece. Founded in 1976, it comprises the private collection of Paul and Alexandra Kanellopoulos which was donated to the Greek state. It is housed in the neoclassical mansion of the Michalea family, situated on the north slope of the Acropolis and built in 1864. The mansion was purchased by the Greek state in the 1960s-70's and was restored to permanently house the collection …

» Syntagma Metro Station

The Syntagma Metro Station Archeological Collection is a museum in Athens, Greece. It is located at the Syntagma station of the Athens metro and it features a variety of historical items unearthed during the process of building the metro …

» Athens University Museum

The Athens University Museum is a museum in Plaka, Athens, Greece. The building was a structure of the Ottoman period but fundamentally restructured between 1831 and 1833 by Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert for their architectural office. From 1837 to 1841 it housed the newly founded University of Athens …

» Athens War Museum

The Athens War Museum, established on July 18, 1975, is the museum of the Greek Armed Forces. Its purpose is the exhibition of weapon artifacts and the relevant research in the history of war. It covers the history of war in all ages. The museums' collections include the collection of the Greek Army, with artifacts from other civilizations such as Ancient China and Ancient Japan. The museum's centerpieces are weaponry from wars in which Greece was involved …