The Historical Archives of the Benaki Museum forms one of the best constituted and richest archival collections in Greece. It was established and began to function as a separate department of the Museum in 1955.

The archival material comes, for the most part, from the personal collection of Antonis Benakis, as well as from later donations of private benefactors. With the historical evolution of the Greek nation, as a focus, documents, archives and other historical heirlooms have been brought together which for the most part relate to the political, economic and social life of the last three centuries.

A substantial number of the collection refers to the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Valuable information on the preparation for the revolution can be found in the pre-revolutionary archives of the secret guilds and the philhellenic societies such as the Etaireia, the Philomuse Society, the Greek Committee of Paris and others. For the progress of the Struggle for Independence evidence can be found in the personal archives of fighters, orders and letters of naval officiers relating to the war at the sea, reports by European and American phihellenes, as well as a quantity of legal and administrative documents which form a reliable source of information of this historic period. The most important of this archives is that of Georgios Karaiskakis (1780-1827), as well as the archives of Andreas (1784-1846) and Anastasios Liontos (1791-1854), Michael Soutsos (1784-1864) and Ioannis Karatzas (1745-1844), the collections of the Philhellenes, that of Petrakakos and others.

The period of Otho's reign and the revolution of the 3rd of September 1843 is the representative of personal archive of General Demetrios Kallergis (1803-1867), while for the long reign of George I and the events which marked it, the information can be found in the collections of Damianos Kyriazis (1889-1948), J. Stefanopoli, Timoleon Vassos (1836-1929), Athos Romanos (1858-1940) and others.

The first quarter of the 20th century is closely connected with the political rise of Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936). The stormy career and this attempts to restructure the goverment can be traced in the large quantities of his own writtings, his correspondence and the documents which come as much from his personal archives as from the archives of his collaborators and others politicians of the period, P. Dagli (1853-1924), A. Romanos, G. Ventiris (1890-1954) and N. Plastiras (1883-1953).

Also, noteworthy of the section of archive concerned the national Resistance (1940-1944), which includes the personal archives of persons who were active in various illegal organizations during the period of the German Occupation: Ioannis Peltekis (1904-1969), Stephanos Doukas, Errikos Moatsos, Herakles Petmezas, Constantine Benakis (1905-1962) - which refer to the organizations Appolo, Yvonne, Mydas and E.D.E.S.

Finally, we should not overlook the archives and manuscripts of the Greek composers Nicolaos Mantzaros (1795-1872), Spyridon Samaras (1861-1917), Yannis A. Papaioannou (1910-1989), as well as those of the poets and writers, Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857), Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933), Gregory Xenopoulos (1867-1951), Angelos Sikelianos (1884-1951), Penelope Delta (1874-1941). These archives, enriched with family and historic photographs, form a small sample of the risches which are preserved in the Benaki Museum.

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Since 1994 the Historical Archives Department has been re-housed in Kifissia in the mansion that belonged to Stephanos and Penelope Delta (Odos Emmanuel Benaki 38 and odos Stephanos Delta), the gift of their daughter Alexandra Delta-Papadopoulou.