A Trip to the Folk Art Museum

Are you interested in learning about the traditional folk arts of Cyprus? Then head to the Folk Art Museum in Geroskipou, a village on the eastern border of Pafos. The museum introduces you to the tools and methods employed to make a variety of useful and beautiful objects. The rooms devoted to textiles, for example, house implements for preparing flax, wool, silk, and cotton for weaving; you’ll also find a loom and other weaving instruments along with examples of fine embroidery and lace. One room is set up as a blacksmith’s workshop (look for the giant bellows), while another contains forms and tools for making shoes. The pottery room displays different types of vessels and explains regional variations in their decoration; it is replete with examples of handmade pots and includes a detailed description of the process for throwing a pot on a turntable. One room sets a domestic scene featuring cooking utensils made from bronze, earthenware, wood, cane, glass, and gourds. Look here for ingenious crafts, like the gourds used as floats to help children learn how to swim. A lofted room contains agricultural implements (a threshing board, a sickle, a vine dibbler), and the stable holds tack (stirrups, woven saddle bags, canvas collars). One highly detailed exhibit covers the craft of the last printed scarf maker in Cyprus. The museum is housed in an eighteenth-century stone house that long served as the residence of the British Consular Agent. Now it welcomes you to learn about Cyprus’s past.