Mykonos town, apart from the vast alternatives of bars & clubs, is home to many museums, which represent the island’s significant legacy in history and its traditional spirit. We would recommend starting from the Archaeological Museum, which hosts findings from excavations dating back to the Hellenistic period and prehistoric times.
Archaeological Museum
Facing the sea in the old port in Mykonos town (Chora,), there is the archaeological museum where you can find a unique collection of art crafts discovered in excavations throughout the island and in the neighboring islands of Delos and Rhenia. It includes marble and clay sculptures, vases, jewellry and ceramics, dating back to the 9th century BC. The museum was created in 1902, in order to preserve art crafts discovered in 1898. Its most famous piece, however, is a vase with an image of the Trojan horse, from the 7th century BC and unearthed in Mykonos in 1961.
Maritime Museum
The Aegean Maritime Museum was founded in 1985 on the island of Mykonos. Its purpose is to collect study and promote Greek maritime history and tradition, in particular the evolution and activities of the merchant ship, mainly in the historic region of the Aegean Sea. The Museum’s collections allow the visitor to travel through Greek maritime history, on the seaways of the Aegean sea, from ancient times till nowadays. Its exhibits include models of ships from the pre-Minoan period to this day, historical shipping documents, rare engravings and maps, ancient artifacts, navigational instruments, equipment and tools, as well as a collection of rare coins depicting nautical themes from the fifth century BC to the fifth century AD.
Folklore museum
The Folklore Museum is located in Kastro, a few meters away from the famous Paraportiani Church. Τhere are six main exhibition halls, which house collections of antique furniture, Byzantine icons, Folkloric ceramics, historical commemorative plates, decorative prints and gravures, as well as embroidered and hard-woven fabrics, locks and keys, weights and measures, a lovely collection of model boats and other historical artefacts. There are also important archives of manuscripts and printed matter, photographs, maps and a library.
House of Lena
The house of Lena is a 19th century middle-class Folklore Mykonian residence, located next to the Aegean Maritime Museum and near the ‘Tria Pigadia’ (“Three Wells”). The inheritors of the owner, Lena Skrivanou, donated the house to Mykonos Folklore museum. In the living room you can see not only the furniture, but also the prints, the embroideries, the mirrors and the decorative plates. Τhe bedrooms are fitted with Viennese furniture.
Agricultural museum
The agricultural museum of Mykonos is housed in an old windmill, on a hill overlooking the Mykonos town. It serves the idea of an outdoor museum, which includes exhibits from the ‘Bonis Windmill’ and some other facilities such as the threshing floor, the dovecote, the well, the oven, the wine-press, etc. The Windmill, the threshing floor and the oven are the tree rural installations that for centuries have provided the locals with bread, the most significant part of their everyday diet.
The intention of the Agricultural Museum is to preserve the autonomous rural farmhouse, typical of what once was such a vital aspect of rural life in Greek islands. Also, at the Agricultural Museum of Mykonos one can see tools and machines from the pre – industrial and early industrial eras, which were used in the past for the production and processing of agricultural products.
