The Museum of the Archaeological Site of Mystras stands inside the fortified Byzantine city on a steep hillside above the modern village in the Peloponnese. It is not a separate stop at the foot of the ruins: the museum belongs to the larger archaeological visit, and Greece’s Ministry of Culture says the full ticket includes entry to the site. Its exhibition uses selected objects from Mystras to explain the political, social and spiritual life of a late Byzantine urban centre and its connections with the West.
That setting matters. Mystras developed below a fortress erected in 1249 by William II of Villehardouin, ruler of the Frankish Principality of Achaea, on a hill about 620 metres above sea level overlooking Sparta. After the Franks surrendered the castle to the Byzantines in 1262, the settlement became a centre of Byzantine power in southern Greece. From 1348 it was the seat of the Despotate of the Morea, a provincial state governed by members of the imperial family.
