Archaeological Museum of Samos (Vathy)

On Town Hall Square in Vathy, the museum holds the finds from the Heraion excavations — above all the Kouros of Samos, the largest surviving archaic statue of a youth, over five metres tall and carved around 580 BC. Around it are votive offerings from across the Mediterranean: Egyptian, Assyrian and Cypriot bronzes, wooden figures and ivories brought to the sanctuary by ship. It occupies two buildings, the two-storey neoclassical one of 1912 and a purpose-built wing from 1984. It is the quickest way to grasp what Samos actually was in the 6th century BC.