Archangelos Church and Icon Museum

Peering over the western end of the harbour is the tower of Archangelos church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael; this is now an Icon Museum. The church was built at the end of the nineteenth century and opened as the Girne Icon Museum on 11th June 1990. The icons are a collection from the various Greek Orthodox churches in the surrounding area, it being safer to house them under one roof.

The conventions of iconography are rigidly stylised and therefore virtually unchanging.The methods still used today were established in the sixth century. An icon must not be a caricature, nor must there be any three-dimensional effect, the figure must appear flat. Prayers are said before the process begins so that the spirit of God is with the artist. The icon is venerated not for itself, but for what it represents.

Ancient Shipwreck Museum

This Museum houses the oldest trading ship known to us with her cargo, which was raised from the bottom of the sea.

>The ship sailed in the Mediterranean during the life time of Alexander the Great and his successors. She sank in open waters less than a mile from the anchorage of Kyrenia.

>The evidence point to her being taken by rough seas around the year 300 B.C, when she was rather old.

Michael Katzev of the University Museum of Pennsylvania directed a team to survey the coast of Cyprus for shipwrecks in 1967. In Kyrenia a sponge diver took the team to the site. Using a metal detector, protonmagnetometer and probes, the group spent a month surveying the site to find the ship and the cargo over an area measuring 60 x 30 feet.

Cypriot Folk Arts Museum

An 18th century house on the Kyrenia harbour is now used as a museum. On the ground floor there are olive presses, a primitive plow, a loom, jugs, and a flail. On the upper floor there are samples of traditional handicraft: crochet, bed covers and table cloths, woolen socks, chests with carving, wedding-dresses and wardrobes are some of the things exhibited.