This small but impressive museum, housed in the building of the Apeiranthos primary school, displays more than 2,000 samples of rock, minerals, ores and fossils from Naxos and beyond, and is considered one of richest of its kind in Greece.
Part of the collection has been donated by former mayor Manolis Glezos (see Personalities section), at whose initiative the museum was reopened on a comprehensive basis in 1987 after some 20 years.
Emery, a dark rock used extensively in tools for the processing of stone since antiquity and quarried locally near Apiranthos, takes center stage among the exhibits, occupying one of seven sections.
In the other sections, the museum also presents a wide array of samples of minerals from the Cyclades, the rest of Greece and other countries.
They include marble samples from Naxos and Paros, obsidian blades from Milos, pumice stone from Santorini, volcanic stone from Mt. Aetna and Mt. Vezuvius, bauxite and kyantite from Brazil as well as pieces of meteorites.
The fossils display includes the bones of a dwarf elephant that lived on Naxos some 70,000 years ago.
A highlight is a ray-emitting apparatus which reveals colors of rocks normally invisible by the naked eye.
The museum shop sells a wide array of souvenirs at reasonable prices, such as worry-bead sets, jewelry and various decorative items.
Open: 10.30 am - 7.30 pm (July) / 10.30 am - 9 pm (August).
Source: www.naxos.gr