43. Archaeological Museum of Chania ( Greece )

The Archaeological Museum of Chania is a museum located in the former Venetian Monastery of Saint Francis at 25 Chalidon Street, Chania, Crete, Greece. It was established in 1962.The museum contains a substantial collection of Minoan and Roman artifacts excavated from around the city of Chania and the surrounding prefecture, including pieces from the ancient cities of Kydonia, Idramia, Aptera, Polyrinia, Kissamos, Elyros,Irtakina, Syia and Lissos, and also from Axos and Lappas in Rethymno Prefecture. The museum contains a wide range of coins, jewellery, vases, sculpture, clay tablets with inscriptions, stelae and mosaics. The collection includes a clay sealing from Kasteli, with a representation of a Minoan city and its patron deity dated to the second half of the 15th century BC. There is a clay pyxis with a representation of a kithara player excavated from a chamber tomb in the area of Koiliaris in Kalyves-Aptera dated to 1300–1200 BC. There is also a clay tablet inscribed with Linear A script from Kasteli, dated to 1450 BC and small clay tablets with texts in Linear B script dated to 1300.

The museum has a Roman floor mosaic, depicting Dionysos and Ariadne. The Archaeological Museum of Chania also has an ancient Cycladic style vessel from Episkopi, Kissamos and a number of busts including one of Roman emperor Hadrian, found at the Dictynaion sanctuary in 1913 and a late Minoan sarcophagus from the necropolis of Armeni, dated to 1400–1200 BC. There is also a spherical flask, noted for its unusual ceramic type, dated to the Late Minoan III period.