A folklore museum in Crete

[eftihis]

Hallo, recently i was very honored to inspect and discuss the weapons of a folklore museum in Crete. The items have been collected in the 20s and 30s, have been for long time in storage, have just been taken care, and they are ready to be put in their new display. I am not sure how to start because there many items and i dont know if we can fit them all in one thread, but we will start and we will see...
Best Regards!

[TVV]

Hi Eftihis,
Small, but very nice collection. To be given access to a museum's weapons fund is rare, at least in my experience museums in Bulgaria would never allow an amateur to even look at the items they have in storage, the only exception was a historical society allowed to restore a few pieces of artillery. Therefore to be given the chance to examine all these edged weapons, firearms and accessories must be a rare opportunity, congratulations.
Of all the weapons I find the axes the most interesting part, as I have not seen anything like them before. The rest of the items are easy to identify and catalogue, but the most interesting part is tracing how they arrived at Crete. Did the modern firearms and the bayonets arrive in Crete as part of the preparation for the insurrection of 1897?
Regards,
Teodor

[Marc]

Congratulations!

I'm also interested in the axes... how are they classified by the people at the museum? Is there a posssibilty for a close-up?

Thanks for sharing this with us

[eftihis]

Hallo Marc, the descripton for the axes are "medieval 14th- 15th century". Crete was under Venetian domination from 1204 untill 1669, when the last city Candia, fell to the Turks.

[Rick]

It's interesting, I think I'm seeing the 'eyelash' marks on the large Axe .

The second axe looks more like a tool than a purpose built weapon .

[Marc]

Thank you very much for the pictures, Eftihis, I really appreciate them