Museum of Cretan Ethnology

The Museum of Cretan Ethnology consists of an exhibition complex with activities like: Research, Education, Congresses, Library, Designing Room, Sound Laboratories, Photography Laboratories, Conservation Laboratories, Scientific Laboratories, Archives and Storerooms.

The museum has a two - storey building of a total area of 500 m2 for the presentation of the exhibits and an extension to a neighboring traditional building complex of 300 m2 is being planned. The ethnological research of the museum and its exhibits cover the second millennium A.D. in Crete. In the first phase of the history of the island with its recovery by the Byzantines in 963 and their presence until 1205, the Cretan people enter the Greek Renaissance of the Middle Ages.

During the next 700 years of Venetian and Turkish rule, this people did not only resist cultural subjugation to the conquerors but creatively evolved through centuries preserving the models of the Empire. The Exhibition presents 3000 exhibits from all Crete and follows an ethnological classification of Man’s social activities: Nutrition, Architecture, Weaving, Arts – Trade, Transports, Manners and Customs, Social Organization.