Greece - Korina Miller [77]
Housed in an imposing 19th-century neoclassical building, the museum has been totally overhauled since it was damaged in the 1999 earthquake. The final galleries opened in 2009, bringing to light previously unseen collections. The exhibits are displayed largely thematically and are beautifully presented.
With 10,000 sq metres of exhibition space, it could take several visits to appreciate the museum’s vast holdings, but it is possible to see the highlights in a half-day.
Ahead of you as you enter the museum is the prehistoric collection, showcasing some of the most important pieces of Mycenaean, Neolithic and Cycladic art.
The fabulous collection of Mycenaean antiquities (Gallery 4) is the museum’s tour de force. The first cabinet holds the celebrated Mask of Agamemnon, unearthed at Mycenae by Heinrich Schliemann, along with key finds from Grave Circle A, including bronze daggers with intricate representations of the hunt. The exquisite Vaphio gold cups, with scenes of men taming wild bulls, are regarded as among the finest surviving examples of Mycenaean art. They were found in a tholos (Mycenaean tomb shaped like a beehive) at Vaphio, near Sparta.
The Cycladic collection in Gallery 6 includes the superb figurines of the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC that inspired artists such as Picasso.
Backtrack and enter the galleries to the left of the entrance, which house the oldest and most significant pieces of the sculpture collection. Galleries 7 to 13 exhibit fine examples of Archaic kouroi (male statues) dating from the 7th century BC to 480 BC, including the colossal 600 BC Sounion Kouros (Room 8), found at the Temple of Poseidon in Sounion. Made of Naxian marble, the statue was a votive offering to Poseidon and stood before his temple.
Gallery 15 is dominated by the 460 BC bronze statue of Zeus or Poseidon, found in the sea off Evia, which depicts one of the gods (no one really knows which one) with his arms outstretched and holding a thunderbolt or trident in his right hand.
In Gallery 21 you will see the striking 2nd-century-BC statue of a horse and young rider, recovered from a shipwreck off Cape Artemision in Evia. Opposite the horse is the lesser-known statue of Aphrodite, showing a demure nude Aphrodite struggling to hold her draped gown over her private parts.
From Gallery 21, head left and up the stairs to the museum’s other big crowd-puller, the spectacular Minoan frescoes from Santorini (Thira). The frescoes – the Boxing Children, the Spring wall painting showing red lilies and a pair of swallows kissing in mid-air, and the Antelopes – were uncovered in the prehistoric settlement of Akrotiri, which was buried by a volcanic eruption in the late 16th century BC. The Thira Gallery also has videos showing the 1926 volcanic eruption, the Akrotiri excavation and preservation work.
Also on the 1st floor is the superb pottery collection, which traces the development of pottery from the Bronze Age through the Protogeometric and Geometric periods, to the emergence of the famous Attic black-figured pottery of the 6th century BC, and the red-figured pottery from the late 5th to early 4th centuries BC. Other uniquely Athenian vessels are the Attic White Lekythoi, the slender vases depicting scenes at tombs.
In the centre of Gallery 56 are six Panathenaic amphorae, presented to the winners of the Panathenaic Games. Each amphora contained oil from the sacred olive trees of Athens and victors might have received up to 140 of them. They are painted with scenes from the relevant sport (in this case wrestling) on one side and an armed Athena Promachos on the other.
Also on the 1st floor are several recently opened galleries exhibiting Hellenistic pottery, the Cypriot antiquities collection and a stunning array