The Acropolis Museum

 

We had a quick bite to eat and then crossed the road to the wonderful Acropolis Museum. I had taken this picture the night before of the reflection of the Acropolis in the glass of the museum, to show how close the two things are. The beautiful building was designed by architects Bernard Tschume, an American and the Greek Michael Photiadis. It was completed in 2007. There had been a lot of controversy of the siting of the museum as it lies above an archaeological site. Now the museum is elevated above the site and in the summer excavations still continue. After we had finished in the main museum we had a look at the ruins lying underneath.

A slope takes you down from the street on to the museum site and we entered the museum into an entrance hall which slopes upwards to mimic the climb up the Acropolis. Unfortunately we had not realised this device and took the lift straight up to the top floor as we thought we would do top down! 

The top of the museum has glass sides running all round and is built on the same orientation as the Parthenon on the Acropolis. It is in effect a reproduction of the Parthenon and has the pillars marked out on the floor. The Parthenon frieze runs around the inside of the corridor so that it is illuminated by natural light. The actual marbles from the frieze are in their correct place and the missing pieces are marked out in white with a notice saying where they are at the moment. We were acutely aware of being English as a large number of the missing pieces are in the British Museum. It is very obvious that they should be returned. They would be displayed in their rightful place and rather better than in the British Museum. I am also sure that more people would see them in Athens.

From this top floor you can look down on to the floor below which contains some more archaic findings from the Acropolis site. The Persians had sacked Athens in 480 BC while an earlier version of the Parthenon was being constructed. After the Persians had been driven out the Athenians dug pits on the Acropolis and ceremoniously buried all of the old statuary and cult objects in these pits providing a rich hoard for future archaeologists. I was particularly taken with a tiny bronze dog with a little collar on which was made around the 7th century BC!

Around mid afternoon we went out on to the terrace and had something to drink. It was warm and balmy and there was even a couple of Olympian gods to amuse us.

Coming back into the museum we went down to the first floor by lift which brought us out the wrong side of the ticket barrier! The barriers would not accept our tickets again so we had a bit of a fuss before we were let back in again. The first floor had the original Karyatids from the Erechtheion and the ceiling was made of glass giving some interesting views. There were other places where it was good to watch for people.

We were fairly foot sore by the time we came to leave, but luckily our apartment was very central and we would not have far to go to eat in the evening.