These 3-floor museum has a large collection from different eras. There’s a folklore exhibition in the basement, a military exhibition on the ground floor portraying Greece’s troubled history, an adjacent section on ancient finds, and an eclectic collection on the first floor.
The basement displays equipment and tools that were used in recent times on the island and gives insight into the simple life the islanders led. Objects include old weighing scales, an olive press, a barber’s knife, old wine barrels and strange tools for carpentry.
The comparison with the level above is important, because at the same time that these tools were being used, there were different wars going on around Greece from the days of seeking independence from the Ottoman Empire up to the country’s civil war in the 1950s. In addition, the collection on the first floor gives insight into the pirate trade that haunted the islanders and the many sagas that surrounded piracy on the high seas between the 16th and 18th centuries. In complete contrast there is a section on this floor with object dating from 10,000 BC to 500 AD, giving a glimpse of the long, multi-faceted ancient history of the region.