Since the beginning, the Society took action to preserve and protect the monuments uncovered both by its own and by other excavators. This action has taken two forms:
- restoration and conservation programs, such as those that the Society has carried on for such important cultural treasures as the sculptures from the Acropolis, the monuments of Epidaurus, the sites of Mycenae, Rhamnous, Sounion and many others. Special care has been given to Byzantine monuments: the first restorations of the Daphni monastery and the town of Mystra were undertaken by the Society.
- founding of museums to house and protect antiquities. Since the 19th century the Society has established several museums, including the first archaeological museums to open in Athens: the Varvakeion Lykeion and the Polytechneiom (where Schliemann᾿s finds from Mycenae were initially displayed) were established by the Society and their antiquities today form the core of the exhibits of the National Archaeological Museum and of the Epigraphic Museum, to which they were handed over in 1892. Other important museums include those at Sparta, Messene, Epidaurus, Chalkis, and Mycenae.
The Archaeological Society Foundation 