Archaeological Museum of Rhodes (Hospital of the Knights)

The Archaeological Museum of Rhodes is housed in the Hospital of the Knights, a Gothic building on Museum Square in the Old Town of Rhodes, Greece. The Knights Hospitaller began its construction in 1440 and completed it in 1489, under Grand Masters including Pierre d'Aubusson, to care for sick pilgrims and knights. After the Ottoman conquest of 1522 the building was used for other purposes, and the Italians restored it in the 1910s and 1920s and converted it into a museum, which opened in 1916 and later expanded. The building is a rectangular two-storey structure arranged around an arcaded courtyard, with a ground-floor infirmary hall and a large upper hall, the main ward, which has a central dividing arcade and a notable chapel niche. The gate, the arcades and the window frames are examples of late Gothic military-hospital architecture. The collection covers the archaeology of Rhodes and the Dodecanese from prehistoric times through the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Among the best-known exhibits are the Aphrodite of Rhodes, a marble statue of the 1st century BC also called the Marine Venus, the Kallithea and Kameiros grave stelai, including the funerary stele of Kamiros, the Hellenistic head of Helios, and grave monuments of knights in the garden and halls. Rooms present pottery, including Rhodian vases from the Geometric to the Hellenistic period, sculpture, inscriptions, and Hellenistic and Roman mosaics. The courtyard and garden contain grave slabs of the Knights, and the mosaic floors are displayed outdoors. The approach is largely chronological and by site, with labels in Greek and English. The building has been preserved well, with restoration work continuing as part of the wider conservation of the Old Town. A visit takes around one to one and a half hours. The museum sits at the lower end of the Street of the Knights, so it combines naturally with a walk along that street.