Anyone visiting Kythira shouldn’t miss the opportunity to admire up close the findings exhibited at the island’s Archaeological Museum, in Chora. The space housing the museum has been granted by the Kytherian Association. The Museum has two halls. The first, the main hall on the right contains mostly findings of Prehistoric and Classical years from the island, the most important being the marble lion of the 6th century BC – probably from Paleokastro- found in the early 19th century.
In the second, smaller hall, are the findings of recent excavations as well as later samples –mainly Venetian- of the island’s history, such as stone coats of arms of the Venetian period and tombstones, also including the marble statue of Aphrodite and Eros, probably a Renaissance work from Venice. Specimens of prehistoric pottery, mainly from the Minoan and Mycenaean period from Paleopolis, marble sculptures, ceramics, inscriptions and coins are also presented. Due to lack of space many of the findings are exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.