Acropolis Museum

Saturday, May 18

Today is our last day in Athens and the last day of our trip, so after checking out of our apartment, we left our luggage next door with the property manager and set off for the Acropolis Museum.

The museum building itself has an interesting history.  In the 1970s, when the prior museum proved too small for the needs of the collection and restoration facilities, the process of creating a new museum began, but when excavations for a new building were begun at the site at the foot of the Acropolis, the ruins of an ancient city were discovered and it was back to square one.  The current museum was completed in 2007 and rests on more than a hundred concrete pillars above the excavated ruins, which can be viewed under Plexiglas flooring and on the grounds.  The collections is arranged chronologically on three levels, with the top floor sheathed in floor-to-ceiling windows and aligned on an axis with the Parthenon, which is visible on the adjacent hill. 

The collection includes objects that illustrate the successions of civilizations that inhabited the Acropolis, as well as artifacts taken from the mid-5^th-century temples dedicated to the goddess Athena that are so familiar to us today.  There is a very impressive collection architectural and sculptural objects that were destroyed by the Persians earlier in that century.  They’d lain buried and undiscovered until the end of the 19^th century, which preserved them in remarkable condition.  The ongoing work, based on watercolor drawing done when they were unearthed, being done to discover and reproduce the original colors used to decorate the statues is just fascinating.  

The 5^th-century BC buildings of the Acropolis have suffered many losses, some to the ravages of time and pollution, but many more at the hands of man.  The Parthenon was converted to a Christian church in the late 6^th century, and then to a mosque during the Ottoman rule in the 15^th century.  When the Venetians battled the Ottomans, they blew up the Parthenon in 1687, causing the greatest damage.  Not to be ignored, however is the plunder of the treasures of the Acropolis by the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin.  The loss/theft of the “Elgin Marbles,” now housed in the British Museum, and of other artifacts that have found their way to locations worldwide, are a very real irritant for the Greeks; a detailed video explains in extensive detail the chicanery involved in the removal of specific architectural elements. The museum has been built with the specific goal of providing a place for the reunited treasures of the Acropolis; a space on the third floor is built to the exact specifications of the Parthenon, with elements of the frieze, metopes, and pediments that have been recovered on the site displayed in spaces corresponding to their original locations. Duly noted are the missing elements; empty spaces abound, as do plaster casts representing what the original reliefs looked like, with recovered  pieces inserted as they’re acquired, either from the site, or from – elsewhere…

The museum is great, and once again, we learned far too much to write about here (Do I hear sighs of relief?!?), so come visit yourself, or read about it elsewhere. 

We wandered a bit through the narrow lanes of the Plaka, stopping for something to eat in a small café before one last walk pedestrian promenades (named for St. Paul and his first convert here) that lie below the Acropolis, Mars and Pnyx Hills, and alongside the Athenian Agora.  On either side are exposed some of the layers of the civilizations that have previously occupied this city and this land.  Fragments of Roman mosaic floors exposed to the elements, a long-undiscovered sanctuary of the god Pan, ancient water systems, the foundations of a thriving city center – all in the space of a 15-minute walk lined with buskers, sidewalk cafes, souvenir vendors, artists displaying their work, and all manner of 21^st-century life.  Like Rome – but even more so – history is underfoot, alongside, and above us here, and all over Greece.

We picked up our luggage, then took the Metro to the airport.  En route, Tom was pickpocketed – in the best possible way; he’d intentionally put the washcloth that he uses to mop his brow on hot days in the pocket where he keeps his wallet. As he’d planned, the thief got to take home a damp and smelly washcloth, and Tom still has his wallet!  

We’re staying overnight in a hotel near the airport, preparing for a morning departure, the first of three flights that will take us home by tomorrow night.

It’s been a lovely trip, but we’re ready to return to the real world.  Thanks for joining us.