During my trip to Mycenae this past weekend, the tour guide told us that most of the artifacts found onsite, such as the Mask of Agamemnon, were not actually there anymore, but rather were now housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.
So, we went to the museum yesterday. I was very excited! Rick Steves had a nice little tour, as usual, of the museum, so skimming through, I was looking forward to seeing the bronze statue of Zeus (or Poseidon...the debate continues to today), the Mask of Agamemnon, and the collection of Kore statues.
Taso gave us a brief overview of the museum, and then we toured it on our own after that. It was like walking through a real-life Art History class. I took pictures of the ones I liked best.
One of the many Kore statue of a woman. Check out the Archaic smile.
The famous bronze statue of Zeus/Poseidon. Think about this...it was made around 460 B.C., and it was made with a cast molding, so that means they had to carve it backwards/inside out and fill the cast with bronze. Isn't that crazy how real it looks?!
One of the many funerary steles in the museum.
A boy jockey riding a horse.
A wall relief of a horse with a young Ethiopian boy.
Bronze statue of a young man, often thought to be Paris.
A stone statue of Poseidon.
Statue of a dying Gaul. Interesting to compare this one with the ones I saw in Rome. I liked the one in Rome better...
Can't remember what this was...but it reminded me of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus from the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Doesn't it?
Bronze statue of Augustus. It's missing the horse that would have been underneath it and the reins in his left hand.
My favorite...the Mask of Agamemnon. It's the centerpiece of the museum, straight ahead in the first gallery as you enter.
A painted pot found at Mycenae (in fact, Schliemann's favorite find, if I remember correctly) of a woman bidding farewell to the Mycenaen warriors.
I love small models of cities, sites, buildings, you name it. This one is particularly cool, because I've been there!! It's an eagle-eye view of the hilltop fortress of Mycenae, which I blogged about on Saturday.
Look! You can even see the Lion's Gate!
Another Mycenaean masterpiece were the Vapheio cups. These are extremely old and made of gold.
The museum had a special exhibit called "Worshipping Women" and featured one of the museum's main attractions--a copy of Phidias's nearly 40 foot tall statue that was housed in the Parthenon. The copy is tiny! I thought it'd be huge...
Behind Athena, there was a statue of Artemis.
Then I found more pots. This was one of the bigger, more impressive ones.
Then, upstairs, I found a pot from Santorini (Thera, as the Greeks call it) with a painting of a dolphin on it. Looks pretty cool!
Back downstairs, I found a neat little section on the Battle of Thermopylae, the story captured in the movie, 300. These were some arrowheads found at the site along with a caption on the wall describing the story.
We headed out and waited on the steps of the museum to meet up with Taso and grab dinner. The building itself is pretty cool!
We headed down the steps and went to the nearest cafes since we were so hungry. The food was deeelicious!
Then we headed off for our third to last set of interviews, back in Exarhia. During the time that Jordan and I trekked around the area, we found this artwork on the walls. Pretty amazing, huh?
We ended up meeting with Doros and Nas, and I went out for a beer with them before Maggie caught up with us too. 'Twas a good time, and we ended out staying later than I thought we would. But since we didn't have anything this morning, I could sleep in.
All in all though, we're getting close to finishing up our research and will begin our paper prep quite soon. I'll be meeting up with Doros and Nas again tonight to see if they can introduce us to some of their friends for more interviews. They have been more than helpful, and it's been awesome catching up with them.
In fact, Doros, who is a travel agent, told us where his office was, and it's literally around the block from our guesthouse. So, Jordan and I paid him a visit today, where I tried some Turkish delight he brought back from Turkey along with some Arabian coffee. Pretty potent stuff, but it was good.
Our internet is finally back, so that's a plus. But it's quite shoddy, so I'm on the roof where the signal tends to be stronger. It was quite hot before, but it's cooling down now (thankfully). Heading out in another hour, so time to rest up and eat some grub before another long night of interviews. Should be fun!
Toodles,
Sam
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