FIVE permanent exhibitions have been added to the National Archaeological Museum to mark the launch of a series of events on the occasion of the museum's 120th anniversary.
Never before displayed, the new exhibits - ceramics, figurines, jewellery and glass items - are part of the museum's ceramics and miniature-art collection. They are being housed in a new 500m2 wing, formerly home to the Numismatic Museum.
Dating back to the Hellenistic period (4th-1st centuries BC), the exhibition's ceramics stand out for their variety of form and illustrations. They also fill a gap in the museum's vast collection, which stretches back to the 11th century BC.
"This is our first exhibition to feature Hellenistic ceramics," curator Betty Stassinopoulou said. "These are mainly encountered in the eastern Mediterranean following the death of Alexander the Great."
A miniature version of the ancient world, the clay figurines offer glimpses of public and private life, and touch on religion, agriculture, theatre and household affairs. Performers and athletes mix with elegant Tanagra figurines. Archaic Korai engage in discourse with terracotta idols of Eros and Nike from Myrina, near presentday Bergama, Turkey.
"It is believed that even Russian dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky copied the Eros idols to render the awakening of the faun in Claude Debussy's work Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," Stassinopoulou said.

Amassed by the first president of the Friends of the Museum Society and donated to the museum in the 1980s, the Vlastos-Serpieris collection is yet another of the new wing's highlights. Visitors may marvel at the craft of leading vase painters, such as the Athenian Lydos and the potter Sophilos.
Stassinopoulou also points to the acquisition of a couple of items that had been missing from the museum's collection, such as a cooler that was filled with ice in order to keep wine chilled.

Occasionally adorned with precious and semi-precious stones, jewels made of gold date between the Geometric and Roman periods (9th-4th centuries BC).

"Golden jewels are the most difficult items to identify in terms of genuineness," Stassinopoulou said. "These are all derived from excavations. We have many items from the Geometric period which are very rarely encountered, and by this account the museum has one of the best jewellery collections in the world."

A separate section in the jewellery display is dedicated to women and the jewellery they wore, their miniature cosmetic vases - even ancient face powder.

Glass vessels from mainland Greece and the islands span the Archaic period and the Byzantine years (6th century BC-6th century AD). Stassinopoulou said it is moving to see finds from the early 20th-century survey of the Antikythera wreck exhibited beside later finds from Jacques-Yves Cousteau's 1978 visit to the submerged vessel. The wreck produced the first known mechanical computer designed to calculate astronomical positions.

Source : www.athensnews.gr