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