Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Classical art
Just a few highlights of the massive
Classical art
collection can be mentioned. Room
15 boasts a mid-fifth-century BC bronze
Statue of Poseidon
, dredged from the sea
off Évvia in the 1920s. The god stands poised to throw his trident - weight on the
front foot, athlete's body perfectly balanced, the model of idealized male beauty. A
less dramatic, though no less important, piece in the same room is the
Eleusinian
Relief
, showing the goddess of fertility, accompanied by her daughter Persephone,
giving to mankind an ear of corn - symbol of the knowledge of agriculture and
associated with the Mysteries of Eleusis (p.120). In Room 20 is a small marble
statue of
Athena
, a copy of the great cult statue that once stood in the Parthenon:
it's a scary figure; the vast original, covered in gold and ivory, must have been
extraordinary. The
Little Jockey of Artemission
, a delicate bronze figure seeming too
small for his galloping horse, was found in the same shipwreck as the
Poseidon
.
Room 28 has some fine, fourth-century BC bronzes including the
Antikythira Youth
,
thought to depict either Perseus or Paris, from yet another shipwreck, off
Andikýthira, and the bronze head of a
Boxer
, burly and battered. Still more
naturalistic, in room 29, is the third-century BC bronze head of a
Philosopher
, with
furrowed brow and unkempt hair.
1
Later sculpture
The most reproduced of the
later sculptures
is a first-century AD statue of a naked and
indulgent
Aphrodite
(room 30) about to rap Pan's knuckles for getting too fresh - a far
cry (a long fall, some would say) from the reverent, idealizing portrayals of the gods in
Classical times. There is also an extraordinary bronze equestrian portrait statue
(without the horse) of the
Emperor Augustus
.
Minor collections
Less visited, but still extremely worthwhile, are the collections hidden away at the rear
of the museum and upstairs. These include, downstairs the
Stathatos collection
, with
some truly exquisite jewellery; a wonderful
Egyptian
room; and the
bronze collection
.
This is an exceptional display of thousands of items: weapons, figurines, axes,
cauldrons, jewellery, mirrors, kitchen implements; even bronze sandals. Perhaps the
highlight is the
Antikythira Mechanism
, at the far end. Dating from around 150-100
BC, it was discovered in a shipwreck of the island of Andikýthira in 1900, but modern
scanning techniques have only recently revealed its full complexity. It is believed to be
an astronomical computer capable of predicting the movements of stars and planets,
and its sophisticated use of differential gears is unique - technologically, it was at least
1500 years ahead of its time.
Upstairs is a collection of hundreds of
vases
, if anything still more spectacular, with a
full explanation of manufacturing techniques, changing styles of decoration and the
uses of the different types of vessel. As ever, the highlights are from the Classical era.
Up here, too, is a display on the excavations of Akrotíri on Thíra (p.441), including
some of the famous
Minoan frescoes
discovered there.
Stréfis Hill
Just above
Exárhia
a labyrinth of paths leads to the summit of
Stréfis Hill
(Lófos toú
Stréfi), from where there are wonderful views - above all of the Acropolis with the
Saronic Gulf and islands behind, but also across to nearby Lykavitós. Watch out for
unguarded drops near the top and stick to the main paths as you walk up, in order
to avoid one of the more obvious signs of the area's alternative lifestyle, discarded
hypodermics.
