Museum of Byzantine Culture

The Museum of Byzantine Culture aims to present various aspects of life during the byzantine and post-byzantine periods, including art, ideology, social structure and religion, as well as how historical changes and the political situation affected people’s everyday lives. At the same time, the activity of the Department of Educational Programmes, the good structure and function of the conservation laboratories and of the archaeological material storerooms, the provision of scientific know-how to other Balkan countries, the organisation of scientific meetings and conferences, as well as the editing and publishing work, have made the Museum into an exceptionally important centre for the preservation, research and promotion of Byzantine and post byzantine culture. Since the Museum’s inauguration in 1994, an annual bulletin has been published, the first of its kind

by a Greek public museum.

The Museum of Byzantine Culture is housed in a modern building 11.500 m² wide, of which 3.000 m² comprise the permanent exhibition area. The building was constructed between the years 1989-1993 based on the plans of the talented architect Kyriakos Krokos (1941-1998), a personality both contemplative and poetic. Among the best works of public architecture of the last decades in Greece, the building has received a special notion by the international committee of the competition “Awards 2000” of the Hellenic Institute for Architecture. In 2000 the Ministry of Culture has declared it a historically listed monument, and a work of art.

The permanent exhibition of the Museum of Byzantine Culture presents various aspects of Byzantine art and culture, as well as of the following era, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. There are 2,900 artifacts, organized in display units which narrate, in chronological order, “short stories”. They present, in a comprehensive and pleasant way, aspects of Byzantine art and culture, from its origins in late antiquity (3rd-4th c. A. D.) to the Fall of Constantinople (1453), as well as surviving aspects of the former culture in the time after the Fall until the 19th century. Frescoes, mosaics, icons, marble architectural members, integrally detached frescoed early Christian burials, valuable ecclesiastic utensils, objects of personal ornament, but also humble functional objects of everyday use present aspects of life in Byzantium, from the organization of religious and social life to the artistic and intellectual production and the private life and activities in the market, the countryside and the sea.

The exhibits are displayed not merely as works of art, but as witnesses to the culture that created them and the society that used them, within an informational framework of information about their original context and function.

2 Stratou Avenue

Monday 10:30-17:00 / Tue - Sun. 08:30-15:00

T: +30 2313 306400