Paros Byzantine Museum of Ekatontapyliani

Paros - Byzantine Museum of Ekatontapyliani

In the early 1930s a museum was operating in three cells of Ekatontapyliani, on the left of the church’s entrance. The establishment of the collection with icons and relics from the church and the churches of Parikia was created by the vicar of Ekatontapyliani, Georgios Scaramangas (1867-1944). In fact, a part of the “Parian Chronicle”, the renowned marble column of 264 BC, which bears 134 lyrics engraved in Attic dialect, was kept there before being transferred to the Archaeological Museum of Paros. The column records persons, events and natural phenomena of a time period of 1.318 years. From time to time the museum would close, until its reopening in 1993.

On the occasion of the celebration that took place in 1996 for the 17 centuries of Ekatontapyliani’s church history, the new exhibition with the relics of its collection was inaugurated. It is located on the southwestern corner of the cells’ complex, at the site where the Primary school of Parikia operated in the past. All those works that were preserved from time to time by the Archaeological Service and 2nd Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities are exhibited in the three consolidated ground floor spaces, the chapel and the two rooms.

In the first room the visitor meets icons that come from various churches and monasteries of Paros. There are also icons coming from areas of Asia Minor, Rhodes, Macedonia and Rumania. There are many donations and oblations which are originally attributed to initially dragoman, and later ruler of Wallachia, Nicholas Mavrogenes, who descended from Marmara of Paros. Some of the icons are works of hagiographers of the Cretan school from the 15th and the 16th century. Icons of local hagiographers from the 17th century are included in the collection. The Epitaph of Ekatontapyliani constitutes an excellent sample of the Post-Byzantine ecclesiastical woodcarving. In the rest of the rooms there are showcases with works of gold-silversmithing. A Gospel with elaborate bindings, which is an oblation of ruler Nicholas Mavrogenes, is exhibited as well.

Info

Tel.: +30 22840 21243

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