The Epigraphic Museum was founded by royal decree in1885 entitled “On the organization of museums in Athens” (Government Gazette 113/7-12-1885) pursuant to which all the inscriptions from the Acropolis had to be transferred to the Central Museum (article 1). These had been collected there by Kyriakos Pitakis, the first Greek archaeologist, as well as by other archaeologists and had come firstly from the Acropolis itself, but also from other places in Athens. Thus, from 1886 onwards, inscriptions that had no topographical or architectural significance for the monuments of the Acropolis and the inscribed bases, which were not related to specific statues, began to be transferred to the current National Archaeological Museum “in order that an Epigraphic Museum be founded  with these monuments and by others found in other places of Athens” (Arxaiologikon Deltion 4, 1888, 48). Inscriptions that had been included in the Public Central Museum (in the temple of Hephaistus/ Thiseion), as well as in other public collections of Athens, such as the Collection of the Archaeological Society and Varvakeion, also started to be transferred there.