In Sigri of Lesvos is a unique monument of nature on a global scale, the Petrified Forest of Lesvos. It was created about 20 million years ago, during the Lower Miocene period, when volcanic materials covered and petrified the forest that covered the area at that time.

The Greek State, recognising the great environmental, geological and palaeontological value of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos, declared it a “Monument of Nature to be preserved” (PD 433/1985).

In 1994, the Natural History Museum of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos was founded, with the aim of studying, researching, promoting, exhibiting, conserving, preserving and utilizing the Petrified Forest of Lesvos in every possible way. It is a public benefit legal entity supervised by the Ministry of Education & Religious Affairs, Culture & Sports – General Secretariat of Culture. The headquarters of the Museum is located in Sigri, Lesvos, in the centre of the protected area of the Petrified Forest and is housed in a modern building of 1,600 m².

The Museum’s activities include research activities, excavation programmes, fossil protection and conservation activities, and activities for the promotion and management of the Petrified Forest protected area.

The Museum is a dynamic lever for the cultural, economic and social development of the region, as international scientific conferences, cultural events, exhibitions, scientific meetings, lectures and screenings are held every year in its premises. Every year, the summer cultural events ‘Celebrations of the Earth’ and the ‘Agrotourism Festival’ are organised on the Museum’s premises.

Particular attention has been paid to the implementation of educational programmes and the creation of educational material for all levels of education. Every year the Museum’s educational programmes attract the interest of students from Lesvos, Greece and abroad.

The Museum cooperates with the UNESCO World Geoparks Network, the European Geoparks Network, scientific institutions, museums, universities and research centres in Greece and abroad.

It was awarded the Eurosite management award 2001, for the promotion and management of the Petrified Forest. In 2008 it won the International First Prize in the World Ecotourism Competition of the International Association of Tourism Professionals SKAL INTERNATIONAL, in the category “Ecotourism Destination”. In 2008 it received the “Let’s Go 2008 Recommends” award, in recognition of the quality of the services it offers to its guests. In 2009, Lesvos and the Petrified Forest were awarded the title of Top Tourist Destination of Greece, within the framework of the European Destinations of Excellence (EDEN) programme.

The Museum’s Permanent Exhibition Areas

1. Hall of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos

The Petrified Forest exhibition hall presents the evolution of plants on earth, from the first single-celled organisms that appeared on our planet to the emergence of developed plants and the creation of the Petrified Forest. The graphs show the most typical animal and plant organisms that have passed through our planet and the geological period in which they lived. Showcases display rocks created by the earliest single-celled organisms such as stromatolites and fossils of the most primitive multicellular animal organisms that lived in the ancient seas long before the first plants appeared. Also on display are fossils of the most distinctively developed terrestrial plants of each geological period from their appearance on the planet until the end of the Mesozoic Era (about 65 million years ago).

The flora of the Petrified Forest is presented with representatives of more than forty different species that have been discovered and identified in the wider area of western Lesvos. Petrified trunks, branch stems, impressive petrified leaves and leaf imprints, fruits and roots of trees are presented in front of large-scale graphs of the plants they represent. Palm trees, cinnamon trees, daffodils, topiaries, beech, oak, walnut, alder, sycamore, sycamore, anchovy, pine and protopyrus, itamos or taxa, cypresses, rabbitbrushes and impressive sequoias are some of the species on display at the exhibition. The fossils recovered from the Sigri submarine site, after careful conservation and cleaning from the salts and marine organisms that for many years had made them their home, are now on display in a special area of the Petrified Forest Hall. Representative fossils from various fossiliferous sites in Greece (Kymi, Evia, Vegora, Elassona, Aliveri, Santorini) follow.

In the same room, the first evidence of the presence of animals that lived in the area of the Petrified Forest is presented. On display is the fossilized jaw of a dinosaur, an ancestral form of a proboscidean animal 18 million years old.

In a specially designed showcase, an exhibit donated to the Museum by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in June 2001 is displayed. These are petrified twigs and leaves of plants from the Holocene (10,000 years – present day), which come from the region of Agia Paraskevi in Halkidiki.

The exhibition in the hall concludes with a reference to Theophrastus, philosopher and student of Aristotle, who was born in Lesvos and is considered the father of mineralogy, botany and ecology. His works ‘On stones’ and ‘On the history of plants’ are the first references to the Petrified Forest.

2. The Aegean Evolution Hall

The Aegean Evolution Hall presents the geological phenomena and processes associated with the creation of the Petrified Forest and the geological history of the Aegean basin over the last 20 million years. The movement of lithospheric plates in the region, the subduction of the African lithosphere and the evolutionary history of volcanic activity in the Greek area are presented.

Impressive forms of quartz minerals, such as ore crystal, capnite, amethyst, chalcedony, the unique Serifos prassian, pink quartz – minerals that form crystals of various sizes in a wide variety of colours, and minerals that form amorphous masses of large size of the natural forms with which silica (SiO2) can be found in nature are presented in the next section.

Unique samples of volcanic rocks and volcanic formations as well as volcanic proformations are exposed together with the stratigraphy of volcanic products in western Lesvos. The section is dominated by the model of the volcano of Lepetymnos, the largest volcanic centre of Lesvos, and models of different types of volcanoes.

In the exhibition area there is the possibility of monitoring the seismic tremors in real time recorded by the Sigri Seismological Station installed in the museum’s premises. It is also possible to monitor seismological data from all over the world as it is connected to the national seismological network of our country through the Geophysics Laboratory of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Paleogeographic reconstructions depict the evolution of the region from the Tethys oceanic area to the continental Aegean cherso and the creation of the Greek Archipelago.

Today’s Aegean Sea with its active volcanoes, seismic faults and the multitude of geological monuments reminds us that the processes that led to the creation of the Petrified Forest are still active.

The geological phenomena that affect an area shape its geography and form, and these in turn are decisive factors in the composition of its fauna and flora and the evolution of the organisms that inhabit it. For this reason, the evolution of the Aegean region could not fail to mention the animals that have inhabited the area, which is so intensely geotectonic and constantly changing.

In the last section, skull casts of important extinct primates from Greece are exhibited, the most important being that of the ‘famous’ archanthrope of the Petralona of Chalkidiki, which is a transitional evolutionary stage between Homo erectus (Homo erectus) and the present-day Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens). The section concludes with tools from Lesbos of the Palaeolithic age made of flint, which remind us of the inextricable link between the geological structure of a region and human activity.

3. Seismic bank

A seismic bank has been installed and operates in the Museum’s premises, simulating catastrophic earthquakes from all over the world. The Seismic Bank offers a realistic experience of earthquake shaking to the Museum’s visitors, in order to help them understand the phenomenon and, on the other hand, to educate them on how to properly deal with seismic risk.

In the seismic bank area, participants experience the Great Japan Earthquake as well as other devastating earthquakes from around the world. At the same time, they are asked to implement the appropriate actions to protect themselves by applying the necessary protective measures.

Especially for students, the Natural History Museum of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos implements the educational programme “Natural processes on our planet. Let’s get to know earthquakes” and an exciting journey of knowledge about earthquakes begins, to culminate with the great hands-on experience, the earthquake bank preparedness exercise.