On-Site Museum at the Metropolis, Naxos

On-site museum in Chora on Naxos, where visitors walk among finds of a Mycenaean town and a pottery workshop as they were discovered.

Opening hours unknownFree admission

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About the museum

The On-Site Museum at the Metropolis, Naxos, was created in 1999 in Chora on Naxos. It was the first of its kind in Greece and one of the few well-known internationally, because it allows visitors to walk among the ancient remains exactly as they were found during excavation.

The remains belong to a Mycenaean town of the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC. A section of a mudbrick wall on a stone base is preserved, and inside were uncovered the spaces of a pottery workshop, with benches where unfired vessels still rested, basins for coating with clay and a firing kiln. Near the kiln was found one of the largest known Mycenaean kraters, of which copies are displayed today. It is one of the few, and perhaps the best preserved, complexes of workshops of the Late Bronze Age in the Aegean.

A notable find is also the earthen mound of the Geometric period, which possibly was a centre of hero cult at the burial place of the “ancestors”. In the 2nd century AD houses were built, the remains of which visitors can also see.

Highlights

Walk among the remains of a Mycenaean town of the 12th–11th century BC
Pottery workshop with kiln and copies of a large Mycenaean krater
Earthen mound of the Geometric period
Remains of houses from the 2nd century AD

Permanent exhibition

Επιτόπια έκθεση στη Μητρόπολη Νάξου – Remains of a Mycenaean town with a pottery workshop, a Geometric mound and Roman-period houses, visible on the spot where they were found.

Founded: 1999
Operated by: Υπουργείο Πολιτισμού – Εφορεία Αρχαιοτήτων Κυκλάδων