erakleio is famous for its museums. The most impressive of all, is the insuperable Archaeological Museum. This museum is unique of its kind and is by itself worth a journey to Crete. The museum contains an incredible collection of Minoan art works arranged in 20 large galleries. These exhibits cover the whole of Cretan civilization from the early beginning to the end of the Helleno-Roman age, and there are finds not only from Knossos but from the whole of Crete (mostly the eastern and central parts).

ll the visitors to the Archaeological Museum, are charmed by the beauty of the statuettes. One of the most famous is the faience statuette of the Goddess with the Snakes, symbol of fertility. Some idea of what the people of the Minoan age must have looked like can be gained from their portrayals in paintings and sculptures. The women of Crete, light and mobile, took care with dressing their hair , decorating the arrangement on top with jewels and multi-colored ribbons.
Their dresses were very low cut (or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they went bare-breasted) and the skirts, drawn in at the waist, hung down low. The men, at the other hand, seem to have worn light clothing, they dress consisting only of a multi-colored piece of cloth around the waist, although there are depictions of officials in rich-worked cloaks and headgear.

		omong the other marvellous exhibits of the Archaelogical Museum of Herakleio are the black steatite bull's head rhyton, one of the most valuable exhibits which would have been used for libations, the decorated with frescoes sarcophagus and the harvester vase from Ayia Triada, the Minoan frescoes (that are a wonderful colour chronicle of life in those times, particularly as lived in the palace) and the legendary Phaestos Disc with writing in a script that has not as yet been deciphered.
However, the Museum's size, its importance and the wealth of its exhibits, makes every description superffluous. Seize the opportunity!

Photos and text taken from "Crete - today and yesterday" and "Crete - A tour of all the towns and villages" (Toubis Editions)

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