National Archaeological Museum in Athens
With a majestic history of 3,400 years, the city of Athens is the capital of Greece, located in the Attica periphery. One of the oldest cities in the world, Athens has been a powerful city state, the first democracy and the cradle of European art, education and philosophy, even the cradle of Western civilization.
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Situated in the Exarhia area in central Athens, the National Archaeological Museum houses most of these treasures, some of the most significant artifacts of the world, from prehistory to late antiquity.
The museum was built in the second half of the 19th century, with an imposing neo-classical design, very popular in Europe at the time and doing justice to the heritage of classical artifacts that it keeps. A neo-classic design garden decorated with sculptures unfolds in front of the museum.
The museum showcases a wide range of collections of great artistic and historical importance.
The prehistoric collection displays objects from the Neolithic era and the Early and Mid-Bronze age, objects classified as Cycladic and Mycenean art, ceramic and marble figurines, mysterious and amazingly modern looking human representations, ivory, glass, golden seals as well as the famous Mask of Agamemnon.
The overwhelming Egyptian collection is one of the best worldwide, with rare statues, jewels, tools, mummies, intact bird eggs, a stunning bronze statue of a princess, her dress covered in hieroglyphs, a 3000 year old loaf of bread with a bitten chunk missing.
Other museum highlights are gorgeous statues such as the Antikythera Ephebe, the famous Artemision Bronze, Diadumenos, Marathon Boy, the Aphrodite of Cnidus, the exotic-looking warrior Kroisos Kouros.
No less fascinating than the beautiful statues is the Antikythera Mechanism of the Bronze collection, an ancient mechanical computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. Thought to have been built in the 2nd century BC, it was found early 20th century but its significance and complexity took decades to figure out, once more attesting the great skill and brilliance of the ancient Greeks. Technological artifacts as complex did not emerge again until the 14th century, when the mechanical astronomical clock was built in Europe. This one of a kind mechanism, which would calculate the position of planets, can be considered more valuable than the Mona Lisa.
