Archaeological Museum Petralona

Archaeological Museum Petralona


35 kilometers from Thessaloniki on the old National Thessaloniki-Nea Moudania national highway is the village of Petralona. The cave and the Anthropological Museum are located two kilometers from the village.

The museum was built and financed in 1978 by the Anthropological Association of Greece (GNI), to which it belongs. Opened and operated for the first time in 1979. The purpose of the museum is to show the findings of the Cave of Petralona the prehistoric Greek Culture and the whole world, and the findings represent all the paleontological area of ​​Greece.

The findings include copies of the mausoleum of Archanthropus European Petralona, ​​the oldest traces of fire ever found (from the 24th geological level Petralona Cave, which dates back more than one million years), the first stone and bone tools which were discovered in Nea Triglia of Halkidiki (11 million years) and findings from open spaces before the age of caves in New Triglia, the island of Evia, in Ptolemaida Chalkdiikis, the Aegean Sea, in other parts of Greece as well as in Africa.

There are paintings by the folk painter Hristos Kangara, illustrating the appearance of life on Earth and Archanthropus to teach children how to make tools of stone and bone, the evolution of life according to Aristotle, and the evolution of human life during the past 11 million years according Poulianos.

The museum has a conference room, geological and paleontological conservation laboratories, and a library.