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

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