Folklife and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia and Thrace
Last updated Old photoVilla Modiano
The Folk Life and Ethnological Museum of Macedonia and Thrace is located in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece. It was founded in 1973 by the Macedonian Educational Association and is housed in the building known as Old Government House or Villa Modiano, which was built in 1906 by the architect Eli Modiano, on a 5 hectare plot of land by the sea, for the banker Jacob Modiano. The museum is on four levels, with a semi-basement, two floors, and an attic. Architecturally it is an eclectic structure strongly influenced by Art Nouveau. Particularly impressive is the double loggia with a view of the sea.
The museum collects, researches, and studies the remnants of traditional culture in Macedonia and Thrace and presents them to the public in temporary exhibitions. The museum's collections consist of some 15,000 objects (woven textiles, embroidery, local costumes, tools, weapons, domestic articles, musical instruments and woodcarving, woodworking and metalworking equipment). It also has a specialized library, a photographic archive, a record library and a sound library.
Exhibitions
The permanent exhibitions of FEMM-Th focuses on basic needs of human society of food, shelter and clothing. Today two permanent exhibitions are displayed at the Museum.
The first of these exhibitions, 'At the Watermills of Macedonia and Thrace: Gristmills, Sawmills, Fulling Mills, Cloth-finishing Waterfalls in Traditional Society', which serves as an introduction to the next three thematic units, is regarding the pre-industrial technology and the exploitation of water as source of energy for the grinding of grain, the ripping of logs and the pounding of woolen clothes. This exhibition links and heralds the exhibitions to follow.
The second permanent exhibition 'Macedonia-Thrace: Traditional Costumes, 1860-1960', which has been inaugurated in 2005, includes 55 costumes from Macedonia and Thrace as well as from the historically confirmed extensions of Greece's northerly territories (Northern Macedonia, Eastern Thrace, Eastern Ru-melia, the Black Sea littoral and Asia Minor) that were inhabited by cohesive substantial communities conscious of their Greek origin.
Thrace is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea to the east, it comprises present-day southeastern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and the European part of Turkey, roughly the Roman Province of Thrace. Lands also inhabited by ancient Thracians extended in the north to modern-day Northern Bulgaria and Romania and to the west into Macedonia.
The Thracians were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Southeast Europe and north-western Anatolia in antiquity. They primarily resided on the territories of modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, northern Greece and north-western Turkey.
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The National Map Library, properly the National Centre for Maps and Cartographic Heritage - National Map Library, is located in Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia, Greece. It was established in 1997 for the purpose of preserving, archiving, conserving, promoting, and displaying maps, studying the educational, cultural, and social role of maps, collaborating at a scientific and technical level with national and international organizations, organizing permanent and mobile exhibitions accompanied by catalogues, utilising public and private map collections, and organising seminars and conferences.
The Palataki is the popular name for a large neoclassical mansion in the Karabournaki area of the municipality of Kalamaria. Officially it is known as the Government House (Κυβερνείο).
After the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1923, many of the Greek refugees from Asia Minor (Anatolia) came to Macedonia. To help the new arrivals in the prefecture of Pieria, the Pieria Asia Minor Society was founded.
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