The
Museum of Megisti
is housed in the Konaki, a two-storeyed building with a courtyard and
a
precinct with battlements, on the place called Kavos. During the frankish occupation, the
ground floor was the western end of the island' s
castle as it is proved by the
parts of the western and northern side. During the Ottoman occupation, another
floor was added with two rooms to the east and two to the west and it was used
as the seat of the Turkish governor of the island. The neoclassic elements of the
eastern exterior door and the oblong windows give us a date around the 19th century.
The Museum' s collections:
• Archaelogical collection of finds of the classical, hellenistic and roman period.
• Byzantine collection.
•Folklore collection.
Some of the most important exhibits of the museum are:
- Headless statuette of Goddess Hygeia (1st century B.C.)
- Fragment of marble sarcophagus with a man' s bust amid garlands and putti (2nd century A.D.)
- Funerary relief of a man wearing himation and holding a stlengis (strigil). He is standing between his young slave and an hermaic stele. Hellenistic period.
- Torso of a dressed man of the late Hellenistic period.
- Head of a child (1st century B.C.).
- Lycian reliefs with a representation of soldiers.
- Pointed amphora of the Hellenistic period.
- Glazed plates with incised decoration (12th century).
- Fragments of marble architectural elements of the Early Christian period.
- Frescoes of St Nicholas of the Castle.
- Post - byzantine icons.
- Traditionnal costumes of the island and house gear.
- A diver' s costume and its equipment.
- Stone anchors.
