Susan's NGTAW Blog: Acropolis Archeological Museum - One of the Most Important in the World

The beautiful new Acropolis Museum

Wednesday, July 13 - Trip Day 14

We next walked to the Acropolis Archeological Museum, a beautiful new building that opened in 2009. It replaced the old Acropolis Museum that was located at the top of the hill, and too small to house the many artifacts of the Acropolis that continue to be discovered. The history of the competition for the building is pretty fascinating, and well told at this site on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acropolis_Museum

The planning for the museum began in 1976, and took three decades to come to fruition - in part because the area surrounding the Acropolis is also archeologically important - with two underground layers; one from Byzantine times and below, one from classical times. The answer to this dilemma was to built the museum on stilts - that could withstand the seismic forces of earthquakes, yet allow for ongoing excavation under the building location. Really creative.

One of my favorite features of the structure is that you can see the Parthenon reflected in the window wall of the buildings facade.

This museum is built on stilts to allow for ongoing excavations beneath the structure

The Parthenon is reflected in the glass of the building's facade

Ongoing excavations of classical and Byzantine neighborhoods that surrounded the Acropolis

The web site for the museum itself: https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en

says many times it is "one of the most important museums in the world, housing the findings of only one archeological site, the Athenian Acropolis." Not shy, those Greeks.

One important reason for building the museum was to house the more than 4000 artifacts that had already been recovered at the Acropolis. A second was to counteract the criticism that Greece has no where to properly care for the statues and the friezes and marble panels ("Elgin marbles") that were taken from them by Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin, and others.

The museum is designed - not subtly - to showcase the Parthenon, by reproducing the outer and inner columns of the structure and showing where the marbles and friezes should be located, displaying what they have, and showing reproductions of what's missing. The label also shows the place where the artifact is currently located. Lots of the labels say "BM" - British Museum - but our guide Effie had other comments to make about that!

A fantastic sheer glass curtain wall, which allows a full view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon

The interior of the museum mimics the structure of the Parthenon, by its placement of columns

You can easily see what is supposed to be in these temple locations, and how much is missing

The real west frieze, block 8, with a repaired head, contrasting color to make it clear its repaired

Treasures inside; monumental treasure outside atop the hill

So beautiful to see the Caryatids (or Korai) from the Erechtheion temple (below). The museum has five of the original statues, which were moved indoors in the 1970's to avoid further deterioration. The sixth one is - where else? - the British Museum, just cut out from the group and taken by Thomas Bruce. The six statues that are on the site at the Acropolis are copies, well done.

Their hair is fascinating. One reason it's so long and braided is to give thickness to the neck, as it is a supporting column. These were the first female figures used as columns, and their form and the concept were copied all over the ancient world after that.