Sámos Archaeological Museum

The Sámos Museum, housed in the former residence of the Prince of Sámos and a new building opposite it financed by the Volkswagen Foundation and opened in 1987, displays material recovered in the German excavations of the Heraion from 1910 onwards.

The main hall of the museum had to be specially enlarged to accommodate the most sensational find made in the Heraion, the colossal marble figure, 4.8m/15.5ft high, of an Archaic kouros (C. 580 - 570 B.C.), possibly a votive statue from the Sacred Way. The torso was found in 1980 and the head (70cm/27.5 inches high) in 1984 near the Heraion; the knee had been found 70 years earlier, in 1912. Also displayed in the hall is an Archaic over-lifesize female figure (C. 570 B.C.) excavated in 1984, a counterpart to the famous Hera of Cheramyes, found in the Heraion in 1879, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre.

In the room to the left are the base and three of the original six figures in a group by Geneleos, a sculptor of the Archaic period (C. 560 B.C.). The room to the right contains Hellenistic and Roman sculpture. On the upper floor is prehistoric material (pottery, ivories, bronzes).