Natural History Museum of Crete reopens with 5,000 square metres of interactive exhibits

The Natural History Museum of Crete, part of the University of Crete, officially reopened on Friday with 5,000 square metres of renovated, interactive exhibition space, according to the museum’s director, Nikos Poulakakis.

Speaking to CretaOne 102.3 ahead of the formal inauguration, Poulakakis said the renovation was designed to make visitors active participants rather than passive observers. “The visitor is not a simple sightseer. They actively take part in the whole process,” he said, pointing to new exhibits, holograms and 3D representations added throughout the museum.

The project was funded through Greece’s Recovery and Resilience Fund, via the Ministry of Environment and Energy, with a total budget of €15 million, Poulakakis said.

Darwin, dwarf mammoths and the Cretan shrew

Among the new features is a hologram of Charles Darwin, displayed in a section devoted to the evolution of organisms in the Mediterranean, Poulakakis said. The museum also presents fossils and reconstructions of species that once lived on Crete, including dwarf mammoths and dwarf hippopotamuses, which he said died out thousands of years ago due to natural disasters and climate change.

The director also highlighted Greece’s only endemic mammal still surviving today, the Cretan shrew, which he said lives at the peaks of Psiloritis. “It is significant that it still exists,” he said.

Seismic simulator and real-time Copernicus data

The museum’s seismic simulation platform, long popular with visitors, has also been enlarged. “We created a new seismic table, much bigger than before. Our goal is to optimise the factors so that the experience of an earthquake is as realistic as possible,” Poulakakis said.

An interactive globe in the museum now displays real-time data from the European Union’s Copernicus programme on weather, waves and ocean currents, he added, saying the exhibit also allows comparisons with conditions on Mars or the Moon. The Copernicus satellite system has separately been activated by the EU to assess storm damage elsewhere in Crete this year.

The tour concludes with a section dedicated to the Minoan environment. “We want to show how Minoans influenced and shaped the fauna and flora of Crete over the last 10,000 years,” Poulakakis said.

Digitization project covers Greek natural history collections

Beyond the exhibition halls, the museum has also taken on a research role. Poulakakis said a 12-month project is underway to digitize all Greek natural history collections, with the University of Crete and the museum coordinating eight organizations across the country.

According to Poulakakis, the initiative puts Greece among a small number of European countries with a national digitization system for such collections. He said the digitized data will be made accessible to the scientific community and to decision-makers working on biodiversity protection and the climate crisis.

Other institutions on the island continue to host public-facing cultural programming; a Heraklion museum recently held a round table on the city’s history, while visitors seeking broader cultural and outdoor activities on the island can browse experiences in Crete.