The Batumi Archaeological Museum

Twenty-three thousand finds from south-western Georgia

The museum opened in 1994 at 77 Chavchavadze Street, in a building of the mid-twentieth century. The collection grew out of half a century of excavation in south-western Georgia: Gonio-Apsaros, Pichvnari, Tsikhisdziri.

The holdings now exceed twenty-three thousand items: pottery, glass and bronze, gold and silver jewellery, Greek and Roman coins, finely cut signet rings, a sculpture of the Hellenistic god Serapis. Together they show how far east Greek colonisation reached and how long the Roman and Byzantine presence held on this coast.

The museum keeps a photographic archive, a research library, a ceramics workshop and a restoration laboratory, where every object is photographed and graphically reconstructed.