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

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