Skopje: Museum of Archeology

(A few weekends ago) we visited the Museum of Archeology.



We lucked out and got there just before a tour group --- in English.  So we were able to tag along. The guide was very knowledgeable and captured my daughter's attention. She was hanging on every word for the 1-2 hour tour.She was absolutely riveted by the exhibits and his descriptions of the items and the events that surrounded them.

The guide shared many details about each of the exhibits -- from the paleolithic age, the neolithic age, the copper age, the bronze age, the iron age, ancient Greece and ancient Rome, the Byzantine period -- and after all the many exhibits and eras that were painstakingly described, we got to a small room with few artifacts where he said something to the effect of "and for 500 years we were slaves of the Ottoman Empire. Thank you for coming." And that was the end of the tour.

(Although that was a more generous interpretation of the era than one learns at the Museum of Macedonian Struggle. More on that museum in a separate blog post)

We thought the exhibits were well done, and we were fortunate to arrive when we could take a guided tour in English.. We would definitely recommend the Museum to visitors to Skopje.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any pictures in the museum. However there are many pictures of the exhibits on the Museum's website (with descriptions):

I loved the collection of ancient coins

Here is the Museum website:   http://amm.org.mk/

Here is the Museum's facebook page:   https://www.facebook.com/arheomkd/

We did take some pics outside the museum:

if you look closely you can see a sculpture of a swimmer in the foreground of this picture (in the river)

the Constitutional Court is housed in the same building as the  museum - here is the entrance (and, remnants of the Colorful Revolution) -- we tried 2 (wrong) doors before we found the doors to the museum (the correct doors (to the Archeology Museum) face the river)

we found some kids books about archeology in Macedonia

found this nifty set of leather coasters (each looks like Denar coins) in the Museum of Archeology gift shop