What to do and see in West Macedonia, West Macedonia: The Best Specialty Museums

The Historical – Folklore and Natural History Museum of Kozani was founded in 1969 and officially inaugurated on 10th October 1987. The museum is a creation of the Letters and Arts Association of Kozani. The Historical-Folklore and Natural History Museum belongs to the category of Historical-Folklore museums. It is located in the city centre and it comprises the following thematic categories: Natural History Exhibition ((from the Palaeolithic era until recent years), Archaeological-Byzantine Exhibition (from 7000 B.C. to 1453 AD), Historical Exhibition (from 1453 to 1944), Folklore Exhibition , which is considered the most important one (from 1640 to 1960), Art Gallery of recent years, Stamp Collection (1861-2004) and Radio Collection (1930-1960). The Museum was founded in order to preserve the cultural heritage of the country through the recording and collecting of objects with the education of visitors as the ultimate goal.

The Byzantine Museum of Kastoria, which occupies premises built in 1985, was inaugurated in 1989 and remained open until June 2013. During that period it housed an ‘interim’ exhibition in one of its three galleries. The new exhibition material focuses mainly on panel icons and sanctuary doors, of which there are seventy-five (75); there are also five (5) fragments of frescoes, and thirty (30) other items, examples of the minor arts. The inclusion of this material was reviewed and proposed in a report based on the following principles, consonant with contemporary museological and museographic practice: • Connection with the social and economic context of the period that permitted the painting of the icons and the system of values they serve. • Emphasis on the uninterrupted consequence of the city of Kastoria, which, its peripheral position notwithstanding, flourished in both the Byzantine and the post-Byzantine eras (9th-19th century). • Creation of a museum devoted exclusively to Byzantine and post -Byzantine icons, documenting both the unique character of the icons of Kastoria and the multiple aspects of their function in the Byzantine world, which are among the most important sets of icons in the world. • Organisation of the exhibits in direct association with the churches from which they came, as a spur for the creation of an archaeological walking route in Kastoria, a city that is considered as a prime example of a living, open-air museum. • Creation of a modern, scientifically serious but at the same time visitor -friendly museum.

The Folklife Museum of Kosmas constitutes one of the most pleasant surprises that await the visitor. Within this site, the memory of the past is maintained wonderfully. Here, the visitor meets the tools of the comb-makers of Kosmas, local works of wood sculpture, ceramics, weaving, and the art of embroidery. Archeological findings, historic documents, and the Municipal Library.

The Reliquary is an ecclesiastical museum housed in the matroneum (women's quarter) of the Church of Agios Dimitrios in Kleisoura and in it one can admire portable images of different periods, trends and styles, rare printed books, exceptional samples of gold embroidery, admirable works of ecclesiastical silversmithing and artistic wood carvings and also an important collection of banners of the 19th century.