Athens, National Archaeological Museum

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That was not very clever: visiting the National Archaeological Museum on the last day of a two week trip through northern and central Greece. Of course, it was a nice summary of everything we’ve seen, but I think it would have been better to start over here. Ever a teacher, I might have used the museum’s splendid collection of sculpture to explain to my companions the development of Greek art.

That’s what you’ll find on the first floor: lots of sculpture in a series of rooms surrounding a large hall, which is devoted to Mycenaean art. There, you will find the golden objects from Mycenae that Schliemann found. The sculpture rooms surround it. Your tour starts with some kouroi and you can easily follow the growth to greater accuracy in representing the human body. When you’ve finished about a third of your tour, the Greek sculptors have mastered every aspect of anatomy, and you will pass along many classical sculptures, including two dazzling copies of the Diadumenus and the Cnidian Aphrodite. After that, more sculpture: the fourth century, Hellenism, and finally the Roman age.

On the ground floor, there’s also a series of rooms that contain metal art. Here, you will see the Anticythera Mechanism, but also collections of arrowheads from Marathon and Thermopylae. The Egyptian part – also on the ground floor – is a bit odd in a museum dedicated to Greek art, but the collection is too small to be exposed in a museum of its own and too important to keep stored away. In the Hellenistic part of the Egyptian collection, I noticed a statue of Hephaestion that I had never seen before.

Upstairs, you will find a marvelous collection of pottery and some objects that don’t fit anywhere else, like the Lemnian inscription, written in a language related to Etruscan. Next to it is a section dedicated to the investigations at Santorini, where some splendid frescoes have been found.

Do not forget to visit the basement. There’s a little café with a garden, where you will see some of the sculptures found in the Anticythera wreck. They have a certain beauty because they are partly eroded. I found the giant Heracles absolutely fascinating.

This museum was visited in 1989, 1992, 2004, 2007, 2010.

76 pictures related to this museum

Pharsalus, Krater with a four-horse chariot	Smyrna, Portrait of Caligula, reworked to resemble Titus	Athens, Varvakeion Athena	Mycene, Boar's tusk helmet
Eleusis, Relief of a drunk Heracles	Argos, Theater, Statue of Aphrodite	Lead figurine of Athena	Chalcis-Vromousa, Head of a woman (Roman copy of a Greek original)
Mycene, Dagger with lion hunt	Eretria, Gymnasium, Statue of Cleonicus	Zeus and Ganymedes	Athens, Kerameikos, Base of the statue of a wrestler
Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Palladion	Larisa, Tombstone of Polyxena	Argos, Relief of the Doryphorus of Polykleitos	Thebes, Head of Artemis
Mycene, Wall painting ("La Parisienne")	Argos, Heraion, Sima	Hellenistic ruler	Athens, Pnyx, Lenormant Athena
Artemisium, Statue of Zeus	Gomphoi, Relief of Odysseus and Amphicleia	Dodona, Figurine of Zeus Keraunos	Olympia, Head of the boxer Satyros
Epidauros, Temple of Artemis, Nike	The fight for the body of Patroclus.	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of antelopes	Oropos, Aeolian-Ionic capital
Megara, Statue of Dionysus	Decree of Tefnakht	Athens, Kerameikos, Skull of Myrthis	Thebes, Tombstone
Melos, Statue of Poseidon	Eretria, Lekythos (Bosanquet Painter)	Athens, Stoa of Attalus, Attalus II Philadelphus	Athens, Kerameikos, Dipylon krater
Alexandria, Hephaestion (part of a group with Alexander)	Megiste, Bellerophon sarcophagus.	Athens, Statue of a Minotaur	Megara, Statue of a Roman emperor (Trajan or Hadrian)
Piraeus, Theater, Head of Dionysus (classicizing)	Aegina, Ptolemy VI Philometor	Argos, Heraion, Amazonomachy	Aegina, Temple of Apollo, Statue of a wounded warrior
Argos, Heraion, West pediment, Head of Hera	Athens, Kerameikos, Siren	Lemnos, Tombstone of an Etruscan (?) warrior	Piraeus, Julian the Apostate
Athens, Kerameikos, Alexander with a Lion's Pelt	Piraeus, Funerary stela with ball players	Athens, Temple of Zeus, Portrait of Polemo of Laodicea	Marathon, Arrowheads
Aegina, Tombstone of a young man, holding a bird	Piraeus, Statue of a woman or Demeter	Nysa, Bouleuterion, "Little Refugee"	Mycene, House of the Warrior Krater, Warrior Krater
Mycene, Wall painting of a griffin with a warrior	Eucratides II of Bactria	Piraeus, Funerary stela of Damasistrate	Larisa, Tombstone of a man with a hat
Eleusis, Relief of Demeter, Triptolemus, and Kore	Eleusis, Temple F, Cecrops and Herse	Corinth, Plate with Demeter	Athens, Agora, Late Geometric pyxis
Lycian portrait of Omphale	Corinth, Relief of a hoplite	Eleusis, Tombstone of a warrior	Alexandria, Alexander the Great (part of a group with Hephaestion)
Thebes (?), Block statue of Prince Horwedja, governor and high priest in Heliopolis	Sais, Temple of Neith, Statuette	Sparta, Statue of Julia Aquilia Severa, damaged after her death	Thermopylae, Arrowheads
Piraeus, Head of a bearded god	Akrotiri, Building B, Room B1, Wall painting of boxers	Lebadeia, Relief of Trophonius	Piraeus, Votive stela of a reclining Dionysus