Paris, Louvre

It is hard to write a review of the Louvre in Paris, because it is one of the world’s largest museums. There are many departments, and each one of them might, in its field, have been a museum of the first order. For example, it is hard to find another Egyptological museum in Europe that equals the Louvre.

The museum also has a reputation for interesting expositions – one on Meroe and one on the archaeology of Saudi Arabia during my latest visit – and one ought to visit the Louvre twice a year to keep in touch. The people of Paris are unusually blessed.

If you visit the museum for the first time, you will be surprised by the pyramid-shaped entrance. Use the time you lose to pass the bomb check and buy a ticket to look at it, because it is a monument of the first order.

I already mentioned the Egyptian department, where you can easily spend a full day. There are portraits of the Egyptian kings and objects from daily life, and what is even better: the full history is dealth with, so you will also find objects from the first millennium BCE. The Greek, Roman, and Coptic age are not ignored either, although you need to go to Greek department for the royal portraits of the Ptolemies.

The Egyptian department is deservedly famous, and attracts many visitors, who are usually exhausted when they are half-way their tour. Usually, they will take the shortest route to the exit, which brings them through the departments of Cypriote, Arab, Palmyrene, and Phoenician art – which are, as a consequence, full of people who are not interested in the objects. That is pity, because these rooms alone justify a trip to Paris. Still, if you manage to ignore the crowd of tired visitors to the Egyptian department, you will certainly enjoy coffins from Sidon, Byblos, and Carthage, Nabataean inscriptions, and statues from Cyprus. One of my favorites is a relief of one of the divine triad of Palmyra. You will need half a day to study it well.

Next to it is the Oriental department. The most famous object is, of course, the Code of Hammurabi. Don’t concentrate on the diorite monolith only, but also look in the small display in the same room, because there you will see cuneiform tablets with the same text – one of them written more than a millennium later and proving that these laws had become some kind of Mesopotamian classic, and it is probably no coincidence that the division of these Old Babylonian laws returns in the Ten Commandments.

The Code of Hammurabi was found in Susa, which is a prominent part of the oriental collection. You will also see a wall decorated with Achaemenid soldiers and cuneiform tablets from this Iranian town. Other important excavations are Mari and Khorsabad, but there is a lot more to see. There are also rooms devoted to Jordan and western Syria; they are not adjacent to the eastern Syria and the other Levantine rooms, which is a bit impractical – but the Mesha stela is worth the detour. You need a full day to study the entire oriental department.

The Roman department is surprisingly small. Yet, there is a lot of fine sculpture, including a nice series of portraits of Roman rulers. Next to it is a comparatively small Etruscan department. A galery of rather mediocre statues brings you to the room devoted to Roman art that was later restored, which is great fun: usually, you can immediately see which part is ancient and which is an addition. (Here, you will also find Canova’s famous Amor and Psyche.) You need about half a day to see it all, read the explanatory signs, and take your photos.

The Greek department is larger – you again need a full day to study it all. The two most famous pieces are the expressive Nike of Samothrake and the famous Venus of Milo. The latter is more or less the museum’s raison d’être. Napoleon had looted the Italian museums, but after he had found his Waterloo, all those works of art had to be returned. In an age in which it was believed that inspiration by great art created great minds, and that Greek art was the most inspirational, the emptying of the Louvre was believed to be a national disaster, but fortunately, the Venus of Milo was found. Now, France could compete again with the British, who had the Elgin Marbles. That the armless deity was a Hellenistic and not a Classical statue, was ignored – the inscription which proves it, is now conveniently lost.

The Greek department also has some fine temple remains (from a/o Assos), the Tanagra statuettes that I increasingly love, and lots of pottery. Unfortunately, the rooms with Greek ceramics have rcently been closed. I haven’t seen the Croesus to the left for quite some time: last time, the room was closed to install better protection; before that, it was on loan to another museum.

The crowds are very large, and you may count yourself lucky that I did not bring you to the paintings. This makes a visit to the Louvre a bit difficult, and you must prepare yourself well; fortunately, the museum’s website is excellent. Four days is the minimum for the ancient departments.

Finally, I must mention one little gem that is often ignored and where you can, consequently, quietly look at the objects: the room with metal objects. There is some fine silver work, but you will also see the helmet of a gladiator, a nice statuette of the Tyche of Antioch, the head of Demetrius Poliorcetes, a hoplite’s panoply, a curse tablet from the Crimea, Roman military diploma’s, and so on.

But unfortunately, that’s the only part of the museum where you will not meet many other people. In fact, the museum is too big, and I think that it would be wiser to split it into smaller museums.

This museum was visited in 1984, 1989, 2008, 2010.

255 pictures related to this museum

Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus	Nectanebo I, wearing the crown of Upper Egypt	Relief of a scribe	A bowl from Tepe Hesar I
Achaemenid administrative document	Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Taharqo venerating the falcon-god Hemen	Figurine from Bactria
Ramesses VII	Khorsabad, Lamassu	Isis and Nectanebo II (Serapeum, Saqqara)	Rome, S. Pietro, Sarcophagus with Christ as Lawgiver
Khorsabad, Iron tool	Yemen, Relief of a bird eating grapes	Psamtek I	Mosaic of a musician
Antioch, Judgment of Paris	Pupienus	Greek plate with a picture of the Chimaera. Louvre, Paris (France)	Temple of Athena, relief, symposium
Julia Mamaea	Valerian Jr	Aegis of Osorkon IV	Moabite warrior god
Relief with the sacrifice of goat	Caere, Sarcophagus of the Spouses	Senusret III	King Djedefra
Nicomedia, Hellenistic Funerary relief	Sobekhotep IV	Informal portrait of Sobekhotep IV	Doorknobs from Choga Zanbil (Paris)
Dancers on a very ancient piece of pottery from Rhagae	Susa, DSf (Babylonian)	Susa, Soldiers' Relief, flowers	Temple of the Šutrukids, goddess
Alexander the Great. Portrait from Delos	Senusret III	Susa, Soldiers' Relief, lion	Ptolemy XI Alexander, gold sealing ring
Susa, Soldiers' Relief, mythological creatures	Enkomi, Late Bronze pectoral with sphinxes	Ptolemy X Alexander	Sphinx with the portrait of king Siamun
Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Faustina II	Geta	Old Paphos, Epitaph of King Echetimus
Cleopatra VII in Egyptian style	Arsinoe II	Didia Clara	Olympia, Temple of Zeus, Model
Gortyn, Inscription with laws	Inscription of Nicocles	Ugarit, Alphabet tablet	Aelius Caesar
Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Babylonian map of the western Zagros. A road, a mountain, and a river are indicated.	Socrates	Giza, Diner of Nefer
Letter from Artabanus II, requesting the appointment of one Hecataeus as treasurer	Agrippa Postumus	Statuette of a Libyan	Annius Verus
Idalion, statue of Melqart	A Christian phylacterium, invoking the protection of several celestial beings to protect one Alexandra	Mosaic of the Birth of Paris	Statues of Sekhmet
Timna, Dedication by Rathad'il	Aglibol (Moon), Ba'al Šamem (Lord of Heaven), and Malekbel (Sun)	Heraclius and Khusrau	The body of Hector
Sasanian cup	Silver rhyton	Relief of an Anatolian fort (from the Assyrian city Nimrud)	A stucco apse
Sobekhotep IV	Matidia	Nectanebo I wearing the war crown	Cyprus, bilingual inscription
Susa, Apadana, capital	Byblos, Temple of Baalat, Figurines	Susa, Soldiers' Relief, lion	Temple of the Šutrukids, inscription
Sallustia Orbiana	Khorsabad, Relief of rafts on a great river	Roman officer	Saba, the Arab warrior Mushayqat Hamayat ibn Yusuf on a dromedary
Tydeus painter, Hoplite battle	Tyche (figurine)	Bottle from Tepe Hesar level II	The counterweight of a spear
Ptolemy I Soter	Yemen, Woman's head	Smyrna, Diadumenianus	Pot from the fourth millennium BCE
Mask of a Sumerian	Berenice II	Stele of Adda-hamiti-Inšušinak	Agrippa
Amasis	Susa, DSf (Old Persian)	Persian nobleman; statue from Egypt	Gold plate with royal warrior
A Ptolemaic queen (Cleopatra I, Cleopatra II or Berenice III)	Kition, Egyptianizing capital	Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Tayma, Dedication to Salm
Head of Croesus on a Greek vase	The Azara herm	Akhenaten and Nefertiti	Punic sphinx
Osorkon I	Messalina	Stele of Isis, Horus, and Cleopatra VII Philopator	Tombstone of Iglum, son of Sa'adillat
Ptolemy IV Philopator	Alexander IV	Temple of the Šutrukids, relief	Statuette of Bes, dedicated by Pakher, chancellor of king Psamtek I
Seleucus I Nicator	Khorsabad, Lion-taming spirit ("Gilgameš")	Alexander, statuette from Lower Egypt	King of the Eleventh/Twelfth Dynasty
Apollonia, Relief of two hoplites	Ugarit, Temple of Baal, Stele with the king of Ugarit in front of the god Baal Saphon	The Azara herm	Amulet of Darius
Portait of a priest	Utica, Funeral stela	Statuette of an Etruscan warrior	Arsinoe III
Leo I	The Mesha Stela	Battle axe	Nineveh, Palace of Aššurbanipal, Relief of Arbela
Tyre, Hellenistic building inscription from Al-Ma'shook	Pittacus	Cartouche of Osorkon I	Temple of the Šutrukids, relief: the bull-man
Dedication to Inšušinak	Ajax and Cassandra.	Stele of the "smiting god" from Ugarit.	Upper part of the Codex of Hammurabi; taken from Babylon to Susa, it was excavated in what is now Iran.
Temple of Athena, relief, Triton	Megara, Figurine of two hoplites	Middle-Elamite model of a sun ritual	Stele of Šutruru
Esarhaddon and his mother attend the restoration of Babylon	The "Mistress of the animals": slab from the original temple of Artemis. The archer partly visible to the right must be Heracles	Livia	Khorsabad, Foundation Tablet
Demetrius Poliorcetes	Model of a tower	Julia Domna	Artemis and Apollo killing the Niobids
Marib, Dedication to Almaqah, detail	Statuette of a hippopotamus	Susa, DSf (Elamite)	Byblos, Relief of a lion
Portrait of a man, third quarter of the first century CE (the so-called "Vitellius")	Aššur, Annals of Tikulti-Ninurta II	Mosaic of man dressed as an ostrich	Titus
Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Treaty between Naram-Sin and Elam	The Azara herm	Rules for the trumpetters of III Augusta (EDCS-11000956)
Fausta	Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Stone relief with a banquet scene	Herodes Atticus
Suovetaurilia	Portrait of a Roman man (CE 070-100)	Funerary portrait	Susa, Soldiers' Relief with inscription
Marib, Dedication to Almaqah	Khorsabad, Relief of two courtiers	Ptolemy XII Auletes	POWs being led away on an Akkadian victory stele
Stone fish	Cleopatra II or III as Isis	Scythian archer on an Athenian dish	Vase painting of an archaic Greek galley
Bosra, Nabataean altar	The Azara herm	Ptolemy II Philadelphus	The Azara herm
Thelsae, Nabataean altar	Susa, neo-Elamite decoration	Justinian (Barberini Ivory)	Hellenistic or Parthian figurine of a harpist
Pompey the Great. Louvre, Paris (France)	Drawing of Amenhotep I	The Albani Alexander	Charlemagne
A Sumerian phalanx on the Vulture Stele from Lagash	Idalion, orientalizing gold dish	Theodosius II	Temple of the Šutrukids, relief
Salonina	Byblos, Temple of Baalat, Figurine of a bull	Apries	Eretria, Two-headed phial
Statue of queen Napirasu, wife of Untaš-Napiriša	Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Corbulo	Ptolemy III Euergetes
Susa, Soldiers' Relief with inscription	Susa, Soldiers' Relief, sphinxes	Utica, Oil lamp	Tablet from Girsu with a fragment of a Sumerian Creation Epic
Horus, Osiris, Isis (from the reign of Osorkon II)	Merenptah	Ptolemy IV Philopator or Ptolemy VI Philometor	Utica, Oil lamp
Caere, Banditaccia necropolis, Wall painting of an archer	Portrait of a man from the Temple of Apollo in Pyla	Kition, Statuette of a woman	Funeral inscription of Itaybel
Sherd from the fourth millennium BCE	Keki, the courtier	Crassus	Antinous
The Awan King List	Middle-Elamite basrelief of warrior gods	Nimrud, Northwest Palace of Aššurnasirpal II, Foundation Inscription	Tayma, Taymanite inscription
Fragment of the sarcophagus of Sety II	Montuhotep II wearing the red deshret crown	Sasanian king, perhaps Peroz	Statuette of Raherka, inspector of the scribes, and his wife Merseanch
Nineveh, Palace of Aššurbanipal, Sumerian-Akkadian Dictionary	Dedication by Ilîmagud Mayfa	King Sargon II (right) and his crown prince Sennacherib (left)	Susa, weight from Didyma
Apollonia, Relief to commemorate the battle of Actium	Flower offering on a funeral stela from Pharsalus	Immortal (Susa)	Antonia Minor
Rim of a cup with the name of Xerxes	Darius' DZb inscription	Shabaqo	Imperator inscription (EDCS-05600393)
Susa, Soldiers' Relief	Antiochus III the Great	Temple of Athena, relief, bulls	Dionysiac head
Ramesses IV	An Egyptian poem about the battle of Kadesh	Smyrna, Honorific decree for an officer of VI Ferrata	Alexander the Great as founder of Alexandria
Boy with hoop and rooster	Demetrius Poliorcetes	Yemen, Dromedary pendant