A tale of two Museums, a big un and a little un

23.06.2015

Yesterday I visited two Museums in Athens. I was really excited about visiting the Acropolis Museum because it rates as the #1 attraction on Tripadvisor. It is a new modern building and all of the statues and treasures that were left in the ruined buildings on the rock called the Acropolis were moved here. The first two floors are full of damaged but beautiful remnants from the Parthenon and other Temples from the site. There are a dozen guards on these two floors that will not tolerate any photo taking, so the only views I could take of these floors were from balconies above. They have however done a wonderful job of recreating how the Parthenon would have looked when it was first built in 440BC as a Temple to the Goddess Athena. The floor is built to the same dimensions as the temple and friezes that ran round the upper part of the temple have been reconstructed at a level that is easy to see and appreciate. This was done in part to try to convince the British Museum to return the portions of the frieze called "The Elgin Marbles" which were taken from the site by Lord Elgin and sold to the British Museum in the 19th century. There are spaces in the frieze where these should be, and gaps where pieces have been destroyed over the centuries. The Museum showed a couple of films which made one aware of how glorious the Parthanon was for several centuries, and how even today in it's ruined state it typifies an era when Greek culture was at it's height. Today I visited the site itself and am glad that I saw the Museum first. Anyway it was too hot when I left the museum at 2pm to make the climb up to the top of the Acropolis, so I thought I would try to find the ancient cemetery area, which was supposed to have a nice little airconditioned museum to look around. I almost gave up trying to find it, but got there in the end. I'm glad that I persevered because it was an amazing place, full of lovely things they had excavated from graves in the area. Mainly graves or burial plots that were used over the 1000 years before the birth of Christ. This area was used as a burial ground up to 3000 years BC by people of the iron age, and the numbers are staggering. The first item I saw was a little child's toy horse on wheels, and I thought I was seeing things when the label on it said 900 years BC. The small items in the cabinets were fascinating but the really beautiful items were in the courtyard and passages off it. Starting with a bull, which was so real you could hear it breath, then the life size statues of what were once living people were so beautiful and real it felt humbling to be in their presence. The little Museum really outshone the big un. Back in the real world of sun and sky outside the Museum, it didn't take long for the heat to get to me, so I tried to find my way back to the metro station, home and a well earned cup of tea and a lie down in my room. It was possibly 30 degrees but felt a lot warmer out of the shade...

big new Acropolis Museum