Archaeological Museum of Florina


The Archaeological Museum of Florina is a museum in Florina in West Macedonia, Greece.
The museum is housed in a two-storey building that was constructed in 1969 and renovated internally in 1999. It has prehistoric, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine finds from the Florina area.
The display on the ground floor was organized in 1998 and inaugurated in May 1999 and contains three basic units. The first of these, to the left of the entrance, provides visitors with information about the geomorphology and history of the Florina region from the period of the earliest archaeological finds to the end of the Roman period. However, the main subject of this unit is the activities of humans within the prehistoric period, presented through finds from the excavation of the prehistoric settlement at Armenchori. In the two adjoining rooms are displayed representative examples of sculpture, mainly Roman and include relief grave and votive stelae with various subjects. Other sculptures and inscriptions provide evidence for the names of persons, cities, religious beliefs, social conditions and political circumstances. There is a fourth room that houses a conserved mosaic from the remains of a Roman building at Kato Kleines.
More specifically, there are ceramic wares, objects for everyday use, materials for building houses, stone and bone tools, spindle whorls, and figurines.
One impressive exhibit consists in the jaws of a 200,000 - 500,000 year old mammoth, which was found in the village of Sotiras. Also on the ground floor are grave stelae of the Roman period from Vevi, Petres, Sitaria, Vythkouki, Kastoria regional unit ; statues from Vevi and Lakia ; and an exceptional mosaic floor from a house of the Roman period at Kato Kleines.
On the first floor are displayed finds of the Hellenistic period from Petres and Agios Pandeleimon Hill, most notably a sundial, a statue of Artemis, agricultural implements, and a reconstruction of a house of the Hellenistic period with its masonry, fireplace, storerooms, and other features.
There are also exhibits of the Byzantine and post-Byzantine period from the Lake Prespa area, chiefly the basilica of Agios Achilleios, frescoes from various churches, parts of a wood-carved chancel screen from the hermitage of the Transfiguration, and an Vema door from the Church of Agios Athanasios in the community of Agios Germanos.