Folk Instruments museum in Athens

The museum is dedicated to the Greek folklore music and it has an amazing collection of about 1,200 Greek popular musical instruments dating from the 18th century, making it one of the most significant museums of folklore music in Europe. The mansion in which it is housed is located in Plaka and was built in 1842.

The exhibition occupies three floors and includes four categories of musical instruments; percussion, aerophones, strings, and idiophones. Instruments have descriptions both in Greek and English and visitors can listen to their sound and music range through recorded audios. Some of the exhibited instruments are toumberlekia (pottery drums), daoulia (drums), defia (tambourines), laghouta (long-necked lutes) as well as outia (short-necked lutes).

In the main building you can find the ethnomusicologist library with important audiovisual material and next to it, at the outer building, there is the Research Centre for Ethnomusicology, museum shop and a venue that is ideal for seminars and other educational programs.

The main corpus of the exhibits was ownership of by Mr. Anogianakis who gifted its collection to the Greek state.
The museum is opened on Tuesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday from 10 am to 2 pm and on Wednesdays from 10 am to 6 pm. Telephone: 210 3250198