Athens, National Archaeological Museum

Q637187

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

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