There are two ways to Episkopi, where Kourion Museum is located, from Aphrodite’s Rock one is through the British base and one longer around it. We decide on the longer one as we cannot decide if you can really pass through the base. Even finding Kourion Museum is difficult as we assume it is near the archaeological site but then we notice it is downtown so we have to turn around and enter the downtown area to find it.
The museum is free to enter and is split in two rooms, we start with the room we are directed to it is quite large and there are lots of exhibits to look at about Old Kourion. There are also surprisingly many people here, we thought we would be the only ones out here but it is not true.
The highlight of this room is the exhibit about a Kourion house that was destroyed by an ancient earthquake. When excavating it they found three skeletons a family, male, female and child, each trying to protect each other unsuccessfully. Separately they also found a horse with a servant that were also killed while the servant was trying to save horse.
There are also some interesting artifacts, lots of carved stonework and even some old Cypriot writing that has not yet been all deciphered.
The second room is focused more on finds from the major Apollo temple near Kourion. There is lots of pottery and a famous Apollo statue that we have seen a few times represented on brochures and souvenirs.
It has also a lot more glass case exhibits and we enjoy looking at the different artifacts found in the area. It feels that if you dig somewhere in Cyprus you will find something interesting….at least at archaeological sites :).
There are also some gold artifacts that were found in the area but not that many and an impressive large pot that we are really surprised was found intact. And then it is time to go to Kourion to see the place where all the items we saw here were found.
