Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos

The Archaeological Museum of Agios Nikolaos was founded in 1970 in order to display the archaeological finds from Eastern Crete, which until then had to be taken to the Museum of Heraklion. The collection includes objects dating from the Neolithic Age tothe end of the Graeco-Roman period.

The museum is divided into eight halls, where visitors can grasp the development of art in the region through time, by seeing characteristic artefacts of different styles and from successive eras.

The most remarkable find in the first hall is a phallus-shaped figurine from the Pelekita Cave near Zakros. Various artefacts found in 1971 in the prehistoric seaside cemetery of Agia Fotia, are also on display. This cemetery, which is so far the largest from prehistoric Crete in number of graves, and one of the largest in Greece, had at least 260 tombs that yielded more than 1.600 vessels, a few bronze daggers and numerous obsidian blades (3000-2300 BC).

Moving on to the second hall, one can see the “Goddess of Myrtos”, the most famous artefact of the museum, which is an exquisite libation vessel representing a stylized goddess. It has a very small head, a tall, thin neck and a bell-shaped body; the “goddess” holds a small beaked pitcher (which is essentially the spout of the vessel) with the right hand, supporting it with the left. In the same room one can also see a large number of gold jewellery items and many stone vessels found in an Early Minoan cemetery (2600-2000 BC).

In the fifth hall, one can seeseveral sarcophagi of the Neopalatial (1700-1450 BC) and the Post-Palatial (1450-1170 ΒC) period. A child burial in a pithos, dating from the end of the Bronze Age, is the most remarkable exhibit of the sixth hall. Numerous Late Minoan ceramics and bronze daggers can also be seen in the same room.

The seventh hall is dedicated to the Geometrical period and the Archaic era, while in the eighth hall one can admire finds of the Classical period and the Hellenistic years.

The skull of a young athlete wearing a golden wreath with stylized olive leafs, is considered as one of the most remarkable exhibits of the museum. It was discovered in a Roman cemetery of the 1st century AD, at the location of Potamos, in present-day Agios Nikolaos.