Limassol Archaeological Museum, the district in three sections

District archaeological museums in Cyprus rarely look much from outside, and Limassol’s is no exception. Don’t expect a showpiece building. What you will find is everything that came out of the sites you’ll be walking round in the district, from the island’s first hunters to its Roman towns. Here’s what’s inside and when I’d go.

A museum that started in the castle

The museum’s own history tells you a lot. According to the Limassol tourist board, it was founded in 1948 and set up inside the medieval castle, where the district’s first archaeological collections went on show. After the events of 1964 the collection left the castle and the institution stayed shut for some years, until a new building went up near the District Courthouse in 1972. It reopened there in 1975 and has been the main home of Limassol’s archaeological heritage ever since.

Today Limassol Castle houses the Cyprus Medieval Museum, so the two divide the story between them, the ancient world here and the Middle Ages there.

What’s inside

The board explains that the collections run from the Neolithic to the Roman period, with finds from sites all over the district, arranged in three sections. The first is pottery from different periods. The second brings together coins, jewellery, lamps, copper tools and other objects. The third, my favourite, gathers sculpture, tombstones, architectural pieces and inscriptions in marble and limestone.

There are also objects linked to the worship of Aphrodite, such as votive offerings and female terracotta figurines, a reminder of how central religion was in ancient Cyprus. That’s why the museum is part of the Aphrodite Cultural Route. One of the photos on this page, taken in the museum, shows a funerary pediment with two lions from Amathus.

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The oldest things on the island

One detail I find especially worthwhile. The board highlights that the museum holds material from Akrotiri-Aetokremmos, which it links with the earliest known human presence in Cyprus. The SBA Administration, responsible for the Akrotiri peninsula, explains that a hunter-gatherer shelter was used there more than 12,000 years ago, and that the 1989 dig turned up bones from at least 500 pygmy hippos, three pygmy elephants, a deer and a wild boar, along with tools and ornaments.

Timing your visit

My advice is to go after the sites, and there are more in museums in Cyprus. If you’ve already been to Amathus, the city of Aphrodite’s sanctuaries, or to Kourion, each case will make much more sense. The museum is central, about 600 m from Akti Olympion beach and around 2 km from the castle as the crow flies, so it fits a beach morning or the Limassol old town walk, which lists it as a nearby stop off the main circuit.

Hours and admission charges aren’t something I can give you. They don’t appear in any official source I’m able to quote, and I’d sooner admit it than guess. Ask at the old port tourist office or check the notice at the entrance before you plan your day.

If you want more, the tourist board mentions other museums in the district, such as the small educational archaeological museum in Polemidia, with 17 vessels from the Bronze Age to the Roman period, and on the west coast there’s the local Kourion museum in Episkopi, which I cover with Kourion because it’s worth checking whether it’s open.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Limassol Archaeological Museum and pick one that fits your day.

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