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

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