For insight into the rich history and impressive artistic legacy of ancient Kos, the first stop for sightseers should be the Kos Archaeological Museum. Originally founded in 1936 by the Italians, the island’s rulers at the time, the museum is among the most recent of Kos’ archaeological monuments and infrastructure to be refreshed, restored and made more “visitor-friendly.” After a series of largely EU-funded improvements to local archaeological sites and facilities stretching back over a decade (including improved signage, re-erection of fallen columns and the opening of new exhibitions at the Casa Romana and the small Epigraphical Museum beside the Asclepieion), the Archaeological Museum of Kos (AMK) has had its turn. Closed for more than four years while undergoing major works, the distinctively styled museum officially reopened its doors in September 2016.

The AMK’s pre-WWII architecture is in itself one of the museum’s most historically evocative exhibits. Its façade, with three tall, attenuated arches, bears a unifying resemblance to other historic buildings in Kos Town (e.g., Aghios Nikolaos Church) and brings to mind that period of great archaeological activity when Italian authorities undertook large-scale excavations in the center of the modern town, which had recently been reduced to complete ruin by the devastating 1933 earthquake. Although a disaster for the people of Kos, that earthquake also represented an opportunity for the island’s ancient heritage to be brought to light. Today, for the first time, as archaeologist Stamatia Marketou of Greece’s 22nd Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities points out, artifacts previously out of sight in storerooms, together with information gleaned from the investigations of the Italian excavators into Kos’ numerous sanctuaries, are being presented publicly among the AMK’s newly organized permanent displays.

It cannot be forgotten, however, that Italian authorities in the late 1930s were also responsible for what locals still consider a cultural tragedy for the island, when many exquisite ancient mosaics and statues from Kos were removed and installed as decorations in the Italian governor’s palace in Rhodes – an action reminiscent of ancient Greece and the wealthy Roman collectors who similarly shipped Greek works of art back to Italy to adorn their country villas.

On the museum’s upper floor, thematic exhibits detail the geology of Kos and illustrate the span of Koan history and archaeology, from Neolithic through Roman times (4th millennium BC – 1st c. AD). Minoan, Mycenaean and local artifacts from rescue excavations of the Bronze Age settlement of Serayia near the port of Kos are innovatively presented, some against a backdrop of the archaeologists’ hand-drawn stratigraphic profiles from their excavations. Aspects of the life and death of ancient Koans are reflected in cooking and table wares, children’s toys, boudoir items, loom weights, carved grave steles and a range of grave goods. Transport amphorae and an array of Eastern Mediterranean coins recall the major commercial role and economic prosperity of wine-rich Kos in Hellenistic-Roman times. Other trade goods include a large cache of carbonized figs, while local industry is stunningly represented by balls of brilliant blue pigment discovered in a workshop in Kos’ Agora (marketplace). The vitality of life in ancient Kos is demonstrated by an abundance of evidence for symposia (feasts, drinking parties), including plates, wine pitchers, large two-handled cups and — in one of the museum’s most extraordinary artifacts — a party scene of wild abandon carved on a grave stele that depicts an aulos (flute) player, a nude courtesan lying on a couch with a lyre player behind her, and an ithyphallic male figure on the floor, attended by a young servant boy.