Event: Cyprus - Larnaca

Pierides Museum

When:	Daily; not Sun
Where:	Pierides Museum
Costs:	€1.71
Opening Hours:	9am-4pm (until 1pm Fri-Sat)

The Pierides Museum is home to a collection of precious folkloric and archaeological artefacts which has been assembled over five generations by the Pierides family. Begun by the great scholar, Demetrios Pierides (1811-1895) and continued by his sons, their wives and their children, it is a veritable treasure chest of 9000 years of Cypriot history.

The key features of the collection include rare ceramics from the prehistoric period (7000 BC) and jars, cups, bowls and plates from the Myceanean (1300 BC), Hellenistic (350 BC), Roman (100 AD), Byzantine (400 AD), Crusader (1100AD), Frankish (1200), Venetian (1500BC) and Turkish (1700 AD) periods.

In addition to beautiful ceramics, there is a precious collection of antique maps of the island and a wide-ranging collection of items including embroideries, woven clothes, carved wooden furniture, jewellery, copper utensils and traditional costumes from the 18th-20th centuries. For gun lovers, the rifles and guns dating from the Turkish period will also be of interest.

The museum also holds the world's most important collection of Cypriot Medieval (Byzantine) glazed ceramic vessels dating from the 13th-16th centuries and a rare collection of 660 Roman glassware items, the most complete of its kind in Europe. A display case of modern Greek and Cypriot sculptures can be seen in the courtyard.