The are many important museums in Athens, the Byzantine Museum was founded in 1914. From 1930 on it has been housed in the “Ilisia” mansion, which belonged to the Duchess of Placentia and was built in 1848 by the architect Stamatis Kleanthes. It was transformed into a museum by the architect Aristotle Zachos. Today an addition is being made and a large extension with basement and buildings in part above ground. The architectural design is by Manos Perrakis.
The collections of the Byzantine Museum show the course of Greek art from the 4th to the 19th century. They comprise sculptural works, paintings and small works of all sorts. These works represent the artistic production of the Greek area, and other regions both central and peripheral of the Byzantine empire and subsequently of Hellenism on into post-Byzantine times.

The Museum collections include the following:

- Byzantine and post-Byzantine ikons.
- Sculpture
- Manuscripts
- Wall paintings
- Mosaics
- Small objects (cloth, coins, pottery, metal objects, silver)
- Wood carvings
- Patterns (anthibola), bronze engravings, lithographs
- A collection of old prints (incunabula)
- A collection of copies of paintings

The Ilias Lalaounis Jewelry Museum (ILJM) is a centre for international jewelry studies. On permanent display are the creations by Ilias Lalaounis, an Athenian jeweler and goldsmith, elected member to the French Academy des Beaux-Arts. The Museum organizes temporary exhibitions on various aspects of modern or antique jewelry and runs a series of educational and cultural activities.

The Athens museum of Lalaounis operates as a non-profit cultural institution; following the combined approval of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Finance the Museum is a registered charity. The ILJM opened to the public in December 1994. It is housed in the old Ilias Lalaounis workshop on the south slope of the Acropolis. The building, a beautiful 1930s house, was renovated by Vassilis Gregoriadis on plans prepared by Bernard Zehrfuss.

The permanent exhibition displays 3000 pieces of jewelry and micro-sculpture from 45 collections designed by Lalaounis in the period 1940-1992. They include jewelry inspired by prehistoric art, Bronze Age Greece, Greek jewelry from the Classical and the Hellenistic periods, Byzantium, the art of Persia, the Ottoman Empire and the Far East, as well as creations marking developments in technology and science, from breakthroughs in biology to space travel.

The exhibition is documented by trilingual labels in Greek, English, and French. Guided tours are also given in German and Italian. A variety of videos in Greek, English, and French are available for show at all times in a specially provided Projection Room. Actual jewelry craftsmen may be seen at work in the Museum’s Model Workshop. There is a Cafe and restaurant on the ground floor, and a roof garden with a view to the South side of the Parthenon

The Epigraphical Museum was founded in 1885 and it was established in the ground floor of the building of the National Archaeological Museum, which was constructed between 1866 and 1889, according to architectural plans by L.Lange and E.Ziller.
It was renovated and extended in six new rooms, during the years 1953-1960, according to plans of the architect P.Karantinos.
It comprises a collection of Attic inscriptions and also a collection of inscriptions from other districts of Greece.

Decree of the Athenian people assembly (Demos) ordering, after a proposal of Themistocles, the evacuation of Athens, the mobilization of the fleet and other measures, before the Persian invasion in Attica in 480 B.C. (3rd cent. B.C. copy from Troizen). Height 0,61, width 0,37, thickness 0,09 m.

Sacred law concerning temple-worship on the Acropolis (including the so called Hekatompedon temple). The inscription is the finest example of stoichedon writing (letters arranged in ranks) of the Archaic period, (485/4 B.C.). Height 1,175, width 1,02, thickness 0,125 m.

Stele with building accounts concerning the construction of the Erectheion and the Parthenon on the Acropolis in the year 408/7 B.C. Height 0,955, width 0,445, thickness 0,10 m.

Stele, on which specifications (syngraphai) have been engraved for the construction of the “skeuotheke” (arsenal) at Piraeus, entrusted to the architects Philon and Euthydomos (347/6 B.C.). Height 1,175, width 0,54, thickness 0,10 m.
Inscribed poros stele, dedicated to the goddess Athena, concerning the institution of the Panathenaic Games (566 B.C.). Height 0,36, width 0,68, thickness 0,25 m.

Fragment of lime stone with a graffito found on the Athens Acropolis. The two preserved lines are written boustrophedon (i.e., from right to left and from left to right). The graffito is one of the earliest examples of Greek writing on stone (8th cent. B.C.). Height 0,082, width 0,081, thickness 0,015 m. On the Erehtheion are to be seen th Caryatides.
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Stele found in Eleusis with a decree of the Athenian people assembly (demos) concerning the offerings (“aparchai” i.e.first fruits) of cereals to the Eleusinian goddesses Demeter and Kore (Persephone) (circa 422 B.C.). Height 1,33, width 0,50, thickness 0,095 m.

Stele with the text of the Second Athenian League (378/7 B.C.). Height 1,99, width 0,50, thickness 0,17 m.
Stele bearing a 409/8 B.C. copy of the Draconian laws (7th cent. B.C.), concerning homicide. Height 1,025, width 0,72, thickness 0,135 m.
Altar dedecated to Apollo Pythios by Peisistratos the younger, grandson of the tyrant, during his archonship in Athens (circa 521 B.C.). Height 0,18, width 1,85, thickness 0,55 m.