Marble Crafts Museum in Tinos

The Museum of Marble Crafts in Tinos, Cyclades: The Museum of Marble Crafts, outside the village of Pyrgos in Tinos, presents the history of marble-crafting on the island, from the ancient times till today. Tinos is an island with rich marble quarries and this is why it gave birth to so many marble sculptors, like Giannoulis Chalepas and others. The museum, created by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation, is the first of its kind in the country.

It is housed in modern, fully equipped installations and presents the technology of marble, a material with a special place in the architecture and art in Greece. Visitors can see a permanent exhibition with quarrying, cutting and carving tools, mechanical equipment, crafting techniques and a rich collection of sketches of old marble carvings from the entire country. The whole process of marble-carving is also presented through an audiovisual system, while a collection of photos show the use of marble in various cases.

The museum also has an outdoor exhibition with a hoisting machine for blocks of marble, a trolley for the transportation of marble from the quarries to the workshops as well as finished and unfinished marble works. This machinery was actually used in quarries in the past, repaired and exhibited today in the museum.