National Archaeological Museum, Athens

The National Archaeological Museum (Greek Εθνικό Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο ) is a Greek National Museum in Athens. It is dedicated to the ancient Greeks, and is considered the most important collection of art and artifacts of the period. The 11,000 objects come from all regions of Greece, as all the important finds were brought to the 20th century only there, in addition there is a collection of Egyptian exhibits. Before the Acropolis, it is the most frequented museum in the city.

With the catalog Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens 2002, all exhibited sculptures of the collection have been published in a publication for the first time.

Building

Even with the establishment of the Greek kingdom began planning an Archaeological Museum, from 1854 annually 10,000 drachmas was deferred from the budget for 1856 donated Dimitrios Bernardakis, a Greek from St. Petersburg 200,000 drachmas and thus prompted King Otto in the same year a public tender, which was conducted by the Academy of Munich. Excellent is the Italian Arturo Conti, the contract for construction gets the architect and director of the Academy Ludwig Lange which was already operating in Greece before. However, the plans were considered too expensive, and the execution is deferred. When the funding was secured, in 1865 began to run under the supervision of Panagiotis Kalkos. He died and was beaten Theophil Hansen ago to take over the execution. This however, refused to build according to the plans of long, so that eventually his student and colleague Ernst Ziller was entrusted with the completion of the building from which the facade dates. 1874, the main building was inaugurated in 1881 and 1885, the two side wings.

End of February 2009 was expanded to 24,000 square meters of exhibition space, so that now more than 2000 ancient exhibits can be shown, camped so far due to lack of space in the extensive storerooms of the museum the museum. The new premises are located partly underground and are the biggest enlargement in the history of the museum. The building cost was around 50 million euros.

Departments

During the many renovations the character of the museum as an exhibition hall and 19th century collection is present. The articles are not staged, but mostly shown very businesslike in display cases. The historicist building does not look the contrast to the exhibits, but merges to form an overall impression.

The departments are as follows:

• Prehistoric time
• Egypt
• Ceramics
• Bronze works
• Sculpture

Presented separately, the collection Karpanos.

Spring ( Fresco from Akrotiri )

Shell with early form of the Greek alphabet

Grabnaïskos of Aristonautes

Head of the goddess Hygeia

Aphrodite of Syracuse

Wounded Gaul ( Hellenistic period )

Bronze statue of the emperor Augustus

Major exhibits

The following exhibits are described in separate articles:

• Frescoes from Akrotiri (Santorini )
• So-called Mask of Agamemnon
• Antikythera Mechanism
• So-called Nestor's Cup of Mycenae
• Kore Phrasikleia
• Sounion Kouros -
• Statue of Nikandre
• Nike Epidauros
• Statue of a sleeping Maenad
• Group of Aphrodite, Pan and Eros
• Marble statue of Poseidon
• Statue of a child (NAMA 3485)
• Statuette of a boy (NAMA 2211)
• Statuette of a boy (NAMA 2772)
• Statue of a young Chlamysträgers
• Relief discus (NAMA 3635)
• Lenormant Athena
• Poseidon from Cape Artemision

See Category: National Archaeological Museum ( Athens )

Awards

• Winckelmann Medal of the German Archaeological Institute ( DAI)