The historical archive is one of the most important parts of the Hellenic Maritime Museum. The collection of primary archive material started in the early days of the museum’s establishment. The objective was to preserve, record, study and document the historical events of the Greek nation’s maritime history and tradition.

The archive material comes chiefly from donations of descendants of historic families and Museum members. It consists of more than 25000 pages and it covers the years from the Greek rebirth, “palingenesis”, up to the end of the 20th century approximately.

The archive material is classified in general thematic categories, the most important of which are the following:

• Private Archives

It includes archives belonging to figures who played an active part both in the maritime and the political history of Greece. Such archives are those of Antonios Kriezis, Pavlos Kountouriotis, Dimitrios Papachristos etc.

• Ship Logbooks

The ship log books are a valuable primary source on navigation as well as on the historical events of each era. The historical archive of the HMM includes among other things the log books of the brig “Themistoklis” (1821), the frigate “Hellas” (1828-1829), the steam brig “Amalia” (1861- 1862) etc.

• Personal journals

One of the most complete personal journals of the historical archive is that by Dimitrios Balerbas, gunnery petty officer onboard battleship “Psara”. It is an almost daily record of the naval struggle from the first to the last day of the Balkan Wars of the period 1912-1913.

• Documents

This category includes diplomas, declarations, decrees, memoranda, etc.

• Ship signal registers

The museum archive includes ship trademark registers from the period of the Greek War of Independence such as the trademark registers of ships “Terpsihori” and “Socrates”, issued in 1825.

Finally, a great part of the archive consists of single documents, mainly manuscripts, covering thematically different aspects of the maritime, political, financial and social life in Greece through the centuries.

The HMM is constantly trying to obtain new material to enrich its historical archive. A great volume of the historical archive has already been rendered digitally as part of the programme “Society of Information”. This will secure maintenance and safe-keeping while at the same time it will provide easier access for researchers and history scholars.

Bill of lading 1831-1844.