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

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