Local Agricultural Museum of Kato Drys
(House of Gabriel and Eleni Papachristoforou)

This museum is housed in a traditional house in Kato Drys that belongs to Gabriel and Eleni Papachristoforou. Several years after their departure, their heirs donated it to the Antiquities Department, which -in accordance with the terms of the donation -maintained it and converted it into a local museum.

The house is a typical specimen of local architecture from the 19th century. It is stone-made with five ground-floor rooms and an upper-level room, an indoor, enclosed yard with an oven, and a roofed passage with an arch that leads to the large gateway, which opens toward the road. Although simple, it was quite a luxuriant house for its time, belonging to a wealthy family that owned land and received a decent income through its crops.

When it was converted into a museum, the Antiquities Department made sure that the items and the configuration gave to the visitor an image of a traditional rural household.

The "dichoro" (meaning "two areas" and referring to a large room divided in two by an arch) remained the house's main room, functioning as a living room, a dinning room, a reception hall, and also as a working area. The stone-made arch supports the roof and lends to the room a tone of nobility, making it look like a palace.

The furnishing is simple and frugal; the table, the chairs, the woodcut couch, the chest where they kept their trousseau, a simple brazier for heating, and the loom.

Behind the "dichoro" there is the "sospito" ("inner house") or "tzellari" (cellar), a room without any windows that was used as a storage area for foods and tools. The large earthenware jars were used for the storage of wine and olive-oil.

Next to the "dichoro" there is a storage area that worked as a small barn, straw being thrown in it through a hole on its flat roof. Passing by the storeroom, you find yourself in the "maeirkon" (kitchen) with the "tsiminia" (the fireplace where they cooked their food) and all the utensils necessary for the preparation of meals and bread.

The bedroom in the upper floor was more elegantly furnished with the couple's iron bed, the woodcut closet, the sewing machine, and the decorated plates sitting on the plaster-made cornice.

In all the areas of the house / museum we can observe the tools that were used in the old times by our ancestors for occupational purposes, as well as for household chores.

More analytically, we will see:

In the "Dichoro"

"Vouva" or "arkastirin": The loom with which the women wove the family's clothing and the dowry of the young females.

"Adrachtia": (spindle) tools for the spinning of cotton or wool into a yarn.

"Anemi" and "doulappin": (distaff & kind of spindle with blades) The spun yarn was reeled into loops that were placed on the "anemi" and in combination with the "doulappin", a simple, manually operated machine.





Inside the "sospito"

There are ladders and bridles, packsaddles, harnesses for animals upon which the animal's load was fastened, and a wooden plough with an iron share for the tillage of the land. Sickles for harvesting cereals. A threshing board and billhook for the pruning of vines. A goatskin. A "skalavatis" (kind of a simple ladder made out of the trunk of a tree and its parched branches). A scale and weights of half an oke and one oke (1280 grams).

In the Stockroom

A trap for partridges, a "tsakra" (live trap for hares), a "vourka" (shepherd's packsack made of goat skin), a goat-bells, a "tamboutsia" (large, flat, leather pannier), a "vatokopos" (billhook), a "kounia" (hatchet), a small spade and a mattock for hoeing.

In the Kitchen

"Armarola" (a small, hanging closet for the keeping of cheese and other foods).

A "tapatzia" (hanging pannier), a "tsestos" (large wicker hamper), "vournes" (plural, wooden trough for the preparation of dough). A "thkiartosanido" (plank for kneading dough). A "voupposanido" (plank where breads were placed so as to rise before being baked). Some "sinia" (plural, copper pans used in ovens). Copper-made and earthenware cooking pots. A "ttavas" or "mourouthkia" (shallow or deep, earthenware oven pot), some "kourelloi" (plural, vessel for the keeping of "challoumi" -local, hard white cheese -and olives). An earthenware "kouza" (round pitcher with one handle and slightly pressed-in brim) for carrying wine and water. A "faouta" (wooden flail for beating clothes during washing).