Historic Insurance Museum Cyprus
History
The Historic Insurance Museum Cyprus was established in 2016 and is completely dedicated to insurances and insurance related memorabilia. The collections of the museum encompass two centuries of memorabilia with seventeen categories of insurance related items from over thirty countries. In the collection the visitor can see insurance policies, signs and other memorabilia from over two hundred insurance companies, from Cyprus and abroad. The Cyprus Museum of Insurance was created in order to collect objects and documents related to the Cypriot and international insurance history. Such kind of museums are very limited worldwide and its geographical location makes it even more important as it is the only one in the Middle East area and probably one of the few insurance museums worldwide.
The oldest artifact on display is a 5th Century B.C copy of the “Idalion tablet”, a hand carved bronze tablet which is inscribed on both sides. The script of the tablet is in the Cypriot syllabary and the inscription itself is in Greek. It is an ancient contract between “the King and the city” and mentions a reward given to a family of physicians for providing free health services to casualties during the siege of Idalion by Persians.