Museum of Prehistoric Thera
The Museum of Prehistoric Thera is no ordinary provincial museum. Its special conytents, masterpieces of art in the prehistoric Aegean, such as the famous wall paintings and the unique gold ibex figurine, place it on a par with the Acropolis Museum for Classical Hellas (Parthenon sculptures) and the Vergina Museum for Northern Greece (tomb treasures and wall-paintings).
The Museum of Prehistoric Thera is important not only because it houses works of art from one of the foremost urban centers in the Aegean world, as well as the other period of iTs heyday (17th c. BC), but also because these works, as well as the other objects brought to light by the archeologist's spade, are in an excellent state of preservation. The city of Akrotiri was buried some 3600 years ago under the pumice and tephra ejected in the eruption of the Thera volcano, which have protected it to this day. Three and four storey buildings still stand, with their mural decoration and the objects inside them - in situ0 and frequently intact. This is why the city uncovered at Akrotiri, excavation of which has begun by Professor Spyridon Mariantos in 1967, has been dubbed the Prehistoric Pompeii of the Aegean. Akrotiri is one of the leading archeological sites in Greece and the Thera Museum can be considered as an extension of it, since it houses wall paintings and movable finds recovered here. It also houses artifacts from several other sites on Thera, which date from the 5th millennium BC (Late Neolithic period) to the 17th century BC and bear witness to island's participation in cultural development in the Aegean over a long period of prehistory.
Prehistoric Thira Museum Map
