Museum Nafplio

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The Museum of Nafplio (Syntagma Square) is one of the finest museums in Greece. It has an exceptionally fine collection and offers a particularly good overview of the Mycenaean centers around Nafplio, especially Tiryns and Lerna. Classic and pre-classic Argos are also well represented. The museum is located in an old building of the Venetian fortress.

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One of the most famous articles shown is the Mycenaean armor of Dendra, a bronze armor worn by a Mycenaean aristocrat around 1200 B.C.

Other masterpieces are a prehistoric idol, the finds from the Franchti cave, Mycenaean vases, a beautiful collection of terracotta goddess statues from Tiryns (1200 B.C.), and finds from the archaic period (600 B.C.), then after the Downfall of Mycenaean culture a new period of flourishing emerged on the ruins of Mycenaean Tiryns. The palace was replaced by a temple. Votive gifts were eventually thrown into a large pit and there 2,500 years later. Of particular interest are two terracotta votive shields and some ritual masks.