Is it worth it?
Yes, and more than Knossos itself if you have to choose. The frescoes you see on the palace walls are copies; the originals, along with the gold, the stone vessels and the scripts of the Minoan civilisation, are here. The museum’s own route starts on the ground floor with the Minoan collection (Galleries II to XII), climbs to the fresco gallery on the first floor (Gallery XIII), then continues into later Greek and Roman Crete.
Ground floor: the Minoan collection
1. The gold bee pendant from Malia (Gallery II)
Two bees face each other, joined at head and stinger, holding what is probably a honeycomb, with a drop of honey at their mouths. It dates to around 1800 BCE and comes from the cemetery of Chrysolakkos; look for the tiny cage with a loose bead above their heads.
2. Kamares Ware from Phaistos (Gallery III)
The banquet vessels of the first palaces, 1900-1700 BCE, among them the “Royal Dinner Service” from Phaistos, in Kamares Ware, one of the most decorative styles in the history of pottery. They were made in the palace workshops for the banquets of the ruling class.
3. The Town Mosaic (Gallery IV)
Small faience plaques from Knossos showing the façades of houses two and three storeys high. They are the nearest thing to a picture of a Minoan town, although no one knows where they were set or what they decorated.
4. The “Draughtboard” (Gallery IV)
In the same gallery, a royal gaming board from Knossos in ivory plated with gold leaf, rock crystal, blue glass paste and silver foil. Its luxury tells you more about the palace elite than any wall.
5. The Phaistos Disc (Gallery V)
A clay disc found at Phaistos in 1908, stamped on both sides with 241 signs in a spiral, made with small seals pressed into the wet clay. Nobody has read it. Pairs well with the guide to Linear A and Linear B, the other Aegean scripts.
6. The Bull-Leaping Fresco (Gallery VI)
Unlike most of the frescoes, this one is downstairs. It is the best preserved of at least four paintings of the same subject from the east wing of Knossos: young athletes, men painted red and women white, vault over a charging bull. The guide to Minoan bull-leaping weighs whether it was sport, ritual or show.
7. The Harvester Vase (Gallery VII)
From the royal villa at Hagia Triada, around 1500-1450 BCE: a procession of men carved in low relief on black steatite, carrying farm tools and singing to the beat of a sistrum, a rattle inspired by Egyptian instruments.
8. The Snake Goddesses (Gallery VIII)
Two faience statuettes from the “Temple Repositories” of Knossos, 1600-1500 BCE, holding snakes in their hands. They belonged to the cult rooms in the west wing of the palace and remain the best-known images of Minoan religion.
9. The bull’s-head rhyton (Gallery VIII)
A ritual vessel in the shape of a bull’s head, from the Little Palace at Knossos. Only the left side, in black steatite, is original; the horns, probably of gilded wood, were never found. Look at the inlaid eyes and the curls carved on the brow.
10. The rock crystal rhyton from Zakros (Gallery VIII)
A libation vessel carved from a large block of rock crystal, found smashed into hundreds of pieces and reassembled by the museum’s conservators. It comes from the central sanctuary of the palace of Zakros.
11. The “Ring of Minos” (Gallery VIII)
A large gold signet ring engraved with a cult scene, found in 1928 near Knossos. For years scholars doubted it was genuine; similar finds have since supported it. Small, but one of the most debated objects in the museum.
12. A Linear B tablet (Gallery IX)
A clay page from the archive of the palace of Knossos, 1375-1300 BCE, written in Linear B, the script that Michael Ventris, working with John Chadwick, showed in 1953 to be an early form of Greek.
13. The Hagia Triada Sarcophagus (Gallery XII)
A stone chest coated in plaster and painted in the fresco technique, around 1370-1320 BCE, standing free in the gallery of the larnakes, “the world of the dead”. On one long side the dead man stands before his tomb receiving offerings while priestesses pour libations; on the other, a bull is sacrificed to music; on the short ends, figures ride chariots drawn by wild goats and griffins, perhaps on the last journey. It links the great fresco painting of the palaces with the painted clay coffins of later Crete.
First floor: the frescoes (Gallery XIII)
14. The Prince of the Lilies
A life-size young man in painted plaster relief, wearing a crown of lilies and peacock feathers. Arthur Evans called him the “Priest-King”; other scholars have since put the fragments together differently. Read the label: what you see is partly reconstruction.
15. The Cup-Bearer
A life-size youth carrying a vessel, part of the procession that lined the corridor from the west entrance of the palace. With the Prince, it shows how the Minoans painted the male figure. The guide to Minoan frescoes explains the technique. In the same gallery, look for the Blue Bird Fresco.
What can you skip?
If time is short, skip the rooms of the Historic period upstairs and the sculpture galleries on the ground floor: they are good, but you came for the Minoans. Skip queues by booking a time slot. And do not use the museum only as a rainy-day plan: it is the main event.
How long do you need?
Two hours for the fifteen works, two and a half with the other frescoes in Gallery XIII. With an hour, keep 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 14. For the palace itself, see Knossos; for a day plan, what to see in Heraklion.
The Heraklion Archaeological Museum in brief
- Ticket
- €20; reduced €12 from November to March
- Booking
- Timed ticket, valid only for the day and slot chosen; at the box office (card only) or online
- Hours
- Summer (to 31 October 2026): daily 8:00-20:00, Wednesday 13:00-20:00. Winter: daily 8:30-15:30, Wednesday 10:00-17:00. Entry up to 20 minutes before closing
- Free
- 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, last weekend of September, 28 October; first and third Sunday of the month from November to March
- Time
- 2-2.5 hours
- Note
- The combined ticket with Knossos is no longer valid. Entrance at Xanthoudidou 2
- Verified
- October 2026, on the official sites. Prices and hours change: check before you go.
Questions
Is there a combined ticket for Knossos and the museum?
No longer: the combined ticket is not valid. Each site has its own €20 ticket.
Where is the Phaistos Disc?
In Gallery V, in the Minoan collection on the ground floor of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.
Museum or Knossos first?
Either works. Knossos first gives you the setting; the museum first gives you the images. On Wednesdays, when the museum opens later, do Knossos in the morning.
Are the Knossos frescoes in the museum?
Yes. Most of the originals are on the first floor of the museum, in Gallery XIII, and the Bull-Leaping Fresco is downstairs in Gallery VI; the paintings on the walls at Knossos are copies.
Sources
- Heraklion Archaeological Museum, “Tickets / Opening hours” and “The Exhibition” (October 2026).
- Heraklion Archaeological Museum, exhibit pages for the fifteen works listed.
- Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Odysseus portal: Heraklion Archaeological Museum, information page.
