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

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