Monastery at Daphne / Dafni

So we took A to the monastery at Daphni. I had not been since 1991, almost twenty years ago. I remember walls and fortifications and a blurry photograph I have of the pantokrator (which I may be confusing with a pantokrator in Mystra). I did not remember the Ionic columns from the temple of Apollo and I would not then have been able to spot any trace of Gothicness on the narthex, let alone remember it. Given how much we did learn and retain while making this study tour with the school, there is no fault to be ascribed to Jimmy and the gang if we missed some of the Mediterranean Gothic...

Walking into the site today, the visitor is confronted by the massive block of the Daphni church, orange and pink in limestone and brick with its impressive drum and dome on top, all covered in scaffolding and dotted with stickers labeled ΕΜΠ and NTUA. The south door which was in front of us was locked. We headed to the west colonnaded section of the monastic complex's southern courtyard. The buildings there housed classical sculptures from the Daphnephoros sanctuary and late antique, Byzantine and medieval architectural fragments. Across the court, on the top floor, there is an exhibition on the restoration and the work being done. After wandering about a bit more, we found the phylax and much of what follows we were either told or I figured it out for myself as the phylax took us up the scaffolding.

Photos and videos are not allowed inside (rofl). No, really, they are not, so I was all fidgety and annoyed both because of the brevity of the preparation time available to take some photos while no one was looking but also by the need to keep my (now handheld) helmet-cam hidden.

On the way up, we first see two Gregories, amazingly large when at eye-level, amazingly pink-skinned and white haired in their restored splendour. Each mosaic we saw was an invitation to spend a whole afternoon there, wondering in awe at the work of the mosaicist. Opposite these was Zacharias in an arch, with his funny cuboid hat and then onwards and upwards - the guide rushing us upwards, but telling us to take our time... At conch level, we were face to face with (from NE-NW clockwise): Annunciation (amazingly tranquil and inspiring), Birth, Baptism (no willy), and Metamorphosis (badly damaged). And like the Narnian Mouse - "Further up and further in!", cried the phylax and we found ourselves face to face with sixteen prophets around the drum, again splendidly pink and white, like the Gregories or Zacharias, all of course with their golden backgrounds and with calligraphic names but also with conspicuous tubes and plastic pipes sticking out of them for the strengthening of the mosaics and eventually for the cement enemas which will serve to strengthen the walls and finally allow the walls to again take the weight of the building for themselves.

Then, finally, on the top floor of the scaffolding, we stood face to face with the pantokrator in awe, and were able to distinguish the tesserae and notice that each one is quite a large stone. Amazing indeed, but I had to let K see it too. I came down with appetite for close-up mosaic unsated and told her to go up while we played with A in the garden to the West. The narthex contains one of the four original Ionic columns from the Daphnephoros sanctuary. I am not sure where the other three are, various sources give various stories about what indeed Elgin took from here. The asymmetric gothic exonarthex is rather fun as well, with its arches not quite lining up on each side.

The need for restoration came with the famous quake of 1999, where, apparently the mosaic decoration all came to the ground. On commencement of restoration, they only replaced whatever pieces had a definite provenance, meaning that there are great chunks which will never be replaced. The opportunity to get this close to such exquisite mosaic work was amazing and I totally recommend a visit. The feeling it inspires reminds me of the feeling I had when facing some fresco work in Ochrid or facing the frescoes of the Protaton in Karyes, both pretty much contemporary with these mosaics. I want to go again...

View towards the exonarthex from the North West

View towards the exonarthex from the North West in clunky HDR

Base of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade, complete with seismic sensors

Capital of the Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

Ionic column from the exo narthex colonnade

Our Lady of Isova - A medieval site in Elis

Together with Zarakas and Andravida, the remains of Our Lady of Isova make up the main bulk of the western Gothic ecclesiastical architecture on the Greek mainland. Everything else is Gothic additions to existing structures or Byzantine architecture mimicking gothic forms. The site is just outside the village of Trypiti, unmarked, near a water fountain on the main road. The site is unfenced. I first came across it in 2002 a few years after reading about it in an article on western architectural influences in medieval Greece by Bouras. I have been a few times, three times in the sun, once in the rain and I have photographed it probably with more cameras than I have used to photograph any other site... which is strange as there is not really that much to photograph.

I cannot tell if there is actual work work in progress, but there is a difference between the last time I went before the wildfires of 2007 and just last weekend, and this is not surprising as the fires swept through the site and presumably destroyed the pine buttresses holding up the North wall of the monastery. I say presumably because Isova was mentioned by the MiniCult as one of the sites afflicted by the fires and the wooden buttressing which used to be there has been replaced by some shiny blue iron scaffolding and a roof structure for the apsidal east end of the large building. Remind me to rant about the scaffolding in a moment.

The site is composed of the remains of two buildings, one a church of Saint Nicholas, the other presumably the main monastic building. Of the church of Saint Nicholas, only the apse and a very small stretch of the North wall exists. Of the monastic building, the whole structure is standing to a height of at least 2 meters (lowest around the apse to the east) going up to quite a height on the western wall. There are many gothic elements in the architecture of the building and no doubt many more are waiting to be found through archaeological excavation. The main building presents in the southwest corner the only in situ example of a gargoyle that I am aware of on Greek territory.


The first time I visited the site, in Summer 2002 we were met by an old local who told us quite matter of factly and without any doubt in his mind that when the Byzantines retook the Peloponnese and sacked the monastery, the lead on the roof was so plentiful that when it melted in the conflagration of the sack, the molten lead reached the river (some 1800m away) as it flowed downhill!

Visiting the site with A allowed us to see that the site is not entirely kiddie friendly. I had her in my arms most of the time as a proper visit to the site needs some scrambling on uneven surfaces and / or walking through undergrowth. Fortunately there were some sheep in a nearby field to visit, although this had the result that K spent some time getting sheepshit off the soles of A's shoes.


Aha - and time for my rant: Top Tip for the MiniCult: when you want to put scaffolding somewhere, first paint it and then place it. Doing it the other way round means that you get blotches of paint on 13th Century Masonry. And that's not very clever.

Gothic weekend

Coming soon: The monasteries of Daphni and Isova... woo!

Archaeological Museum of Thera

An old school museum like the Archaeological Museum of Naxos last year. Well. This museum makes the Museum of Prehistoric Thera look like the very peak of museological perfection. The museum is in every way "old-school".

It is made up of wooden cases with dirty glass and one label per 30 exhibits or so, beyond the label saying 7th Century cemetery of Ancient Thera. There's not much to say museologically. The cases need renewing, the building has problems with water entering and causing walls to pop and the iron inside the concrete to crack in certain places (and this on an island which is traditionally considered dry).

General view of the main room with the old wooden cases and the kouros statues facing away. However brilliant this was in the sixties, it does not really cut today. Spot the bits of plaster / paint peeling off towards the top right of the photo...

The exhibition itself contains a pretty interesting batch of finds from all the periods usually covered. There are some very nice Attic ceramics, some daedalic figurines from graveyards and the sanctuary of Aphrodite and some good kouros statues. There is plenty of potential for this museum to be spruced up nicely, but at the moment it remains a type-case example of the crap old-school approach to museums as warehouses of stored antiquities.

One of the old Daedalic statuettes - from the sanctuary of Aphrodite and possibly mimicking a form more suited to a wooden xoanon.

And out of all the chaos and all the complaints, you come across a gem like this attic black-figure krater (mixing bowl) and everything else kind-of fades into insignificance. This piece alone (the photo does not do it justice) is worth the walk up to the museum past all the shops selling kitsch kak to tourists with perfect teeth and deep pockets.

And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Bad present conditions or bad restoration at some unknown point in the past? An old prehistoric pot is slowly crumbling into dust in its display case.

No self-respecting art lover holds the Roman era in much esteem. It is, however, a little extreme to put the Roman period statuary quite literally in the museum's broom cupboard...

Museum of Prehistoric Thera (Thira, whatever)

This museum was to have been the highlight of the trip. I had not been to Santorini since 1997 and the museum was still under construction then. The museum was to house the finds from the excavation of Akrotiri, the bronze-age Pompeii of the Aegean. The museum opened in 2000, so the chances of there having been a good museological approach employed were good. I had high hopes that I would come out of this museum knowing more about Akrotiri than I knew when going in. I consider myself a decently-read amateur so, it is not too much to expect that there would be something to learn from the combined wit and expertise of the Marinatoses and Dumases involved in the excavation and the museum itself.

Big disappointment.

The museum is little better than a store room with occasional explanatory texts. All the faults of the New Acropolis Museum are here (poor explanatory texts, lack of child-friendly texts, etc.), compounded by the exotic, unfamiliar and to a certain degree inaccessible nature of the material.

The exhibition is laid out chronologically with some further separation into categories with which I am not all that satisfied (to show for example, the cosmopolitan nature of the settlement, or the contacts with elsewhere).

I have nothing against contacts with elsewhere - my complaints stem from the bad labeling - put a map on the wall! What does it mean to the average visitor that these vases are from the Argolid, Corinthia or Aegina? Without a map, nothing; without an explanation of the travel routes and times necessary to get to Akrotiri, next to nothing. Again - we are shown lead weights in the trade section: how much did each one weigh? Was it a decimal system or something else? Are there parallels on Crete or on the mainland? In later weights? It's like being served a pistaccio nut and not being told that it needs to be shelled, then eaten!

Then again - what is Linear A? We are presented with a whole case of finds, inscribed with it and yet there is no attempt to help the visitor comprehend the significance of the script or the texts.

Frescoes - undoubtedly what most people go for what with the Minoan flounced skirts exposing breasts left right and center... I found the frescoes disappointing. Apart from the "African" and other fragments, there is nothing here that was not already on display in Athens before the earthquake of 1999. And yet, there have been so many discoveries, and so much is left in Athens (without good reason in my opinion). It is an injustice to keep the Ibexes, the fishermen and boxing boys in Athens when such a museum exists. It's not as if the labeling in Athens is much better. Even so - there is no text discussing the rituals depicted, the dress of the figures, the importance of crocus. The public do want to know. They come to the museum to learn and there is a real need (which is not being met) to explain things. Despite seeing many, I do not recall one explanation of what a rhyton is, or more significantly, how it was used in ritual. And all this from an exhibition designed and opened in the last ten years!

Museology #fail!

I did like the descriptive text about the frescoes and how they were painted, although diagrams or even photographs of pertinent parts of the frescoes showing such things as string impressions on the plaster or the way that true fresco differs from the dry fresco work (both were employed and presumably left different tell-tale signs). These are more missed opportunities to get people interested.

This museum was a great opportunity, sorely missed and it leaves you with a feeling of despair as you realize that we will always be two steps behind the museums of Europe (the real Europe, the one with industry, the one with proper state-sponsored education).

I have a bad feeling I'll be writing this about every new museum I will be visiting...

Ostrich-egg Rhyta showing contacts with the Levantine coast, but without any explanation of the form or function of a Rhyton...

Lion's-heda Rhyton again without any explanation of the form or function of a Rhyton... This piece used to be in Athens and is modelled on a metallic original (the angular eyebrows mimic the shape that a metal lion's head rhyton would take - there's one in the Mycenae room at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens). Of course, you won't learn any of this by reading the labels in the exhibition...

Saffron Gatherers... like the spinal tap song goes: "nobody knows what they were doing, but their legacy remains". It's not surprising that nobody knows, since there is no text written next to them to tell anyone.

Linear-A fragments. See text above for my complaints (or better still, don't - for that full "Greek museum ignorance experience").

Lead weights. See text above for my complaints (or better still, don't - for that full "Greek museum ignorance experience").

Oh, did someone mention a gold Ibex?

Museum of Natural History - Heraklion

Next stop was the museum of Natural History of Heraklion:

I hear a great deal about this. It's because of caving circles that I actually know about the existence of the museum. Friends work at the museum, and conduct research in its name.

I was not too sure what to expect from this natural history museum - I have not really been to one since childhood. The end result was a slight disappointment, brought about essentially by higher expectations than is proper. Perhaps I need to sit and think about what a natural history museum is for. The fact that this one is attached to the MiniEdu rather than the MiniCult may be a bit of a hint, but the whole "what is a museum for?" discussion can wait for another day.

The Heraklion Natural History Museum is divided into 4-5 sections: the dioramas make up the bulk of two floors, the temporary exhibition (currently housing the Antikythera mechanism exhibition), the living gallery with live animals, the earthquake simulator and an external space for traveling exhibitions (currently housing a medicinal plants from across Europe exhibit). The museum costs €6 and has a pretty good bookshop (even though it does not accept credit cards!).

So: Dioramas: The museum has set up dioramas of stuffed animals and vegetation from a number of habitats (mountain, plain, lowland) from a range of places such as the Balkans, Cyprus, Libya and Crete itself, in an attempt to show how the flora and fauna changes from zone to zone and from place to place. All well and good. My favorite question remains unanswered, and it is not asked nor even hinted at: why? Why do we have goat-like animals as the main herbivores and birds of prey and whatnot in each of these dioramas, but in each one they are slightly different? Why is it different eagles and different goats in each one?

The opportunity to discuss foodwebs and (in this, the year of biodiversity and Darwin's 200 years) Evolution has been missed. So, yes, one disappointment there.

The live animal zone was interesting enough although my eco-instinct kicks in and I get all anti-zoo whenever I see animals kept in small boxes. It's hard to balance the benefits of seeing a live viper (οχιά) against the ethics of having seen one in a small box dressed to look like the natural environment. This is most disturbing in the terrapin tank where all the little guys are falling over eachother, literally, in their attempt to get to the best spot under the lamp illuminating their exhibit, which, presumably is also a welcome heat source for the cold blooded anapsids.

Finally, on to the earthquake simulator: The simulator is very popular with the locals. It has been on local TV and subsequently on youtube and the lady giving out the tickets as you enter will suggest that you don't miss it and tells you the time of the next performance. I have been on the simulator at the British Museum of Natural History (Science) as a child and I have felt "the big one" of San Francisco (1906), so I was thinking, like, what's the point? I skipped the simulator.

I regretted this the moment I heard and saw the kids in the simulator screaming (with terror or with glee, I know not) as they were rocked to the rhythm of the Kobe earthquake of 6.9 Richter (1992). wow. So, perhaps worth not missing after all.

In all, the museum is great for the city, albeit a little overpriced, especially to someone used to getting into MiniCult museums for free. I am probably wrong in mentally comparing it with London or even the Goulandris in Athens. Speaking of which: where are the insects, the butterflies and the invertebrate endemics of Crete? Kids love to look at the creepy crawlies and Crete has plenty. I will assume that the curators have this in mind.

To summarise, a good museum for Heraklion which can with time and effort become a great museum for Greece.

The Natural History Museum of Heraklion - already a happy gem for the island of Crete, potentially a gem for all Greece.


Left: a view over the dioramas which take up two floors of the museum. Right: An inhabitant of the live gallery, a Viper - Οχιά. Ethics of keeping live animals aside, an opportunity to get to know one of the poisonous snakes of Greece, close up!

Left, a Cypriot mountain goat (as per the country's Euro coinage), center a Cretan wildcat and right Bonelli's eagle, all from the various dioramas on show.

Four museums in two days

The weekend of the assumption, I had the joy to visit four museums in two days, in two different coastal towns of the Aegean. Two museums in Heraklion and two in Fira on Thera (Santorini). There would have been more in Heraklion had I been slightly more forward looking but there it is. Of the four, two are first time visits, two are repeat visits. I repeat here the notes I made within hours of the visits, with small embellishments.

Archaeological Museum of Heraklion - temporary exhibition
Natural History Museum of Heraklion
Museum of Prehistoric Thera
Archaeological Museum of Thera

Archaeological Museum of Heraklion - temporary exhibition

The museum houses all the finds from excavations not housed in local museums on the island of Crete. It is undergoing a long restoration and reorganization. My last visit was in 2000 during my large Cretan road-trip. Crete is best known in archaeological circles for the prehistoric Minoan civilization which flourished in the late bronze age and has been the subject of much study and theorizing since. The material remains of the Minoan culture forms the bulk of the normal exhibition and also of this temporary exhibition. So:

One hall for 4,000 years of finds is ambitious enough. When that 4,000 years takes us from the NL to Roman times and the subject is Crete, it would be easy enough to see that one hall would be well less than enough. Nevertheless, the curators have managed to cram into this one spare room a veritable treat of Minoan and cretan stuff and I challenge anyone to tell me that their fave piece from the Heraklion Archaeological Museum is not on display. The only thing missing for me was an LM diadem that I am quite fond of - but it is a minor piece that I liked because of the depictions of clothing in the figured scenes. There were also far fewer seals than a sealy person would have liked, but this is to be expected.

So, finds: yes, many and good. All old friends were there. Layout: The layout took a mainly chronological approach through the hall with some thematic display cases covering "external contacts" or "trade". The texts accompanying the exhibition were mainly old-school descriptive labels with a paragraph or two introducing display cases. The layout and lack of space meant that odd pieces became bedfellows in the same cases. For example the Anemospilia boar's head dagger was juxtaposed with the bee pendant from Chrysolakkos. The shortness of space meant that there was no description of the findspot or contextual information about most of the objects sot the visitor will never know about the youth sacrificed with the boar knife in front of the wooden xoanon with the clay feet. I am curious how they will treat these pieces in the final museum, or indeed what they will do with the dodgy reconstruction of the Lilly Prince.

Anyway - in all a good starter-pack of Minoan art, but for me it needed better texts to persuade me that the exhibition which is coming will not be just another same-old same-old storehouse of antiquities with labels.


The bee pendant from Chrysolakkos and the boar's-head dagger from Anemospilia: unlikely bedfellows


Prince of the lilies: wishful victorian thinking or just bad reconstruction?


Where are your lilies, oh man from the siege rhyton? and why is your head facing the wrong way?

A visit to Naxos Archaeological museum (2009)

The Archaeological Museum of Naxos is located pretty centrally on the castle of the old town. It houses a rather fine collection of Cycladic figurines and mycenaean grave goods from the numerous LH cemeteries on the island. We went last year with K and A (seven years old at the time).

On the way up to the museum we spotted this rather nice spolion in a yard wall...

The museum is in the old town which is essentially the medieval castle of Naxos. There are many "Frankish" arches in evidence such as the one on the left and many heraldic designs of the various dukes and counts and lords who were installed after the fourth crusade (don't get me started).

The museum is housed in a Francescan building which shares this side of the square with the Ursuline building, all very tangible signs of the Catholic church's attempt to convert fellow Christians to caesaropapism on the one hand and the heresies of Rome on the other.

Strictly no photography is allowed in the museum (in clear contravention of Law 3028/2002) despite the potential for outreach. Inside, the museum houses a nice cycladic collection with good Late Helladic (second millennium BC) gravegoods and some kitsch looking Roman sculpture. In the open air part, there is assorted sculpture from all ages which is presumably not considered special enough to warrant a guard or protection from the elements. Most of the photos which follow are from the outside part of the exhibition as the lack of a guard allows some photographs to be taken.


The open air section has a large mosaic in the middle, showing the bull carrying Europa off in its centre and animal forms around the edges. In style it is not very different to mosaics from the late antique period all over the Roman empire. The outside section is really quite chaotic and without labelling. On the right, we have classical and gothic capitals rubbing shoulders without seeming to mind the millennium which separates them.

Amongst the many loose sculptural finds from all ages in the open air section, there was also this rather exciting archangel in the "stumpy dumpy" style of the late and post-Byzantine era.

On the left, above, we have various bits of sculpture with an unfinished kouros and on the right, an unfinished Kouros amongst more sculpture of various periods.


On the left, capitals from various periods and in various "styles" - note the very vernacular low relief moustachioed cubes. On the right, a rather nice capital with a medieval / late byzantine figure between two animals, reminiscent of the mistress / master of the animals motifs from many centuries before.


This is the only shot inside the museum I managed to shoot before being told that it was forbidden. It shows a rather nice seated Cycladic figurine from the end of the third millennium BC.


Korinna and Cousin A with the spolia... a walk up to the museum is an opportunity to walk through the town of Naxos and talk about the processes which lead to the incorporation of spolia in newer structures (which themselves become old).

A final few words on the museum: don't miss it. It is old-style with old style labelling and the sleepy-eyed guard will tell you (the ticket lady doesn't talk) that the reason you are not allowed to take photos is that the artefacts are unpublished (this is the case for some, not all the items).

The problem with this logic, of course, is that the excavations were in the late forties and early fifties, and the excavator is dead. This is compounded by the fact that no one in the ephor's seat since has the good sense to get up off their arses and make even a preliminary publication of the important bronze age cemeteries the grave goods of which are in the museum.

If they have enough money to waste on fancy-schmancy touch screens with exceedingly little information stored on them, all but one of which were inoperable (through either faults of design or omissions in the training of the local staff) only months after installation, then why is there no money to make a publication of the old digs? Perhaps because the kick-back off purchasing fancy schmancy touch screens sits better in the baggy pockets of ministry officials such as "bounce" Zachopoulos than the ghostly thanks of the original archaeologist...

Another (totally) final thing: don't be scared by the way the exhibits rattle and move about in their wooden cases as you walk over the creaking wooden boards of the museum. The ministry is informed. That's why they spent money on touch-screen machines that don't work.

New Acropolis Museum disappointing anticlimax

This article was edited in December 2012 to correct some image links
Please see my new post on the improvements made since Summer 2009



Don't get me wrong. The new museum is great. It's unique in terms of the architecture and the finds being exhibited inside. It houses the foremost collection of archaic and classical "golden age" sculpture in the world. There is no other such collection and there can be no other.

So, let me tell you about the museum, then, the museum that they have been building for more than four years; the museum that has been built and finished for the last two years (which were spent on the transfer of the exhibits from one building to the other). I emphasise the timescales involved, to pre-empt the whingers who will try to reason that all that is wrong with the museum is a result of the short timescales involved.

I have been critical of the management of the Museum Opening through this blog in the past. I had hoped to be able to come back with a gushingly positive review of the museum itself, to show to myself as well as to the world that Greece knows how to manage its cultural heritage. Unfortunately, this will not be possible. The museum is not so much a varnished turd, as a lilly gilded with shite (and then varnished). The material the museologists had to work with was amazing, the museum itself is rather disappointing in spite of this amazing material.

My complaints cluster around certain categories all of which are seen in the light of the media blitz telling us that this museum represents THE new way forward for all museums in Greece and that this is the face of the future.

Printed material
My first criticism is the lack of printed material for visitors. In every other archaeological site and museum in the country including the forgotten House of Tiles at Lerna which seems to receive no more than eight visitors annually, the visitors are given a glossy printed "guide" in their choice of English or Greek language, showing a floor plan of the site or museum and information about what is being seen. This is given out together with the entry ticket.

At the Acropolis Museum, which admittedly has just opened (but which has been in a state of being about to open for the best part of two years), the visitor is given his barcoded ticket (a nice touch, although it has been implemented in less advanced countries such as Turkey for years) and that's it. No leaflet, nothing. From there on, the visitor is left at the mercy of the occasional signage pointing him to the next floor. The result of this, I saw quite clearly in the group of English-speaking tourists wondering whether there was anything more to see on the floor above the gift shop and cafeteria. I interrupted them and helpfully offered that they may want to go upstairs, given that the museum was built essentially for the plastercasts on show there.

Sure, there may be a printed leaflet on the way, but why isn't it here yet? Was there not enough time? Was the floor plan not known?

Photography ban
This, at the time of my visit had me more annoyed than anything else. I have been away from friends such as the moscophoros or the sandal-binder for about four years, and now I can see them again, I am not allowed to photograph them. This unjustified ban is as unjustifiable as the illegal summerhouses being built in the burnt forests of Attika.

I am curious from where the authorities of the new acropolis Museum think they are given the right to impose a blanket ban on photography in the museum. Certainly not through Law 3028/2002 on the protection of antiquities (and in general of the cultural heritage of the country).


Apparently, the ban was put in place (according to the guard I asked) because some people were taking "improper" pictures together with the statues. This very unique ban on photography is put in place because people are interacting with art? I am shocked! I am shocked, given the copious amounts of information you give the visitor about the exhibition, and given the respect for the art he is watching that this information will have built in the visitor, I am shocked that some chose to photograph themselves standing next to or even pointing at the penis of a statue. How could someone do this after all the interesting information the museum has provided? And even so: how elitist and snobby does one have to be to proscribe how exactly the visitor is to react to art, that some reactions are acceptable and some unacceptable?

Is the museum in the present century? Does it acknowledge the universal nature of the items on show inside? How can it argue that this universally recognised art should be accessible to all people of the world and then proscribe to these same people the way to enjoy it? Is the status of the Venus de Milo or the Lacoon or indeed of the originals of the plastercasts of the Parthenon marbles any different because photography is allowed?


Ban this sick filth!
(Photos have been downloaded in low res, clicking on the image will take you to the original source)

I will not dwell on the photography ban as I consider it wholly temporary. I am just sad that I could not share all the wondrous things I saw, the new faces of old friends.

Poor explanatory materials
Two problems here, both of which stem from the narrow-mindedness inherent in the system. The labels and explanations are written by archaeologists for archaeologists. The labels on each individual item are very cursory and the general texts do nothing to help the casual visitor who has heard of neither Kekrops nor Erechteus nor indeed Hercules (unless in relation to Xena, warrior princess).

The individual labels rarely go beyond a name and a catalogue number, as if this is enough for 95% of the visitors to the museum who hardly realise that possibly all of the archaic sculpture they are looking at is on display because of the same Persians depicted in the hit film "300" (this is Spaaaarta!). To put it journalistically, while the "what" and possibly the "when" are covered (albeit in a very superficial way), the "where", "why" and "how" are left very much missing.

Why is there no text describing for example, what the gigantomachy is? Or indeed what the amazonomachy and kentaromachy scenes are representing: the Greeks and the 'other'? What is the procession showing on the Parthenon frieze, how many horsemen are there and is it a coincidence that there are 192 of them? In the room full of the Archaic Kouros / Kore / Horsemen: Why was this sculpture erected, where exactly, by who, for what purpose, how was it made, where did the raw materials come from, how much would it have cost (how precious was it) and most significantly, how come this sculpture has come down to us: why was it buried in pits? Perserschutt is a wonderfully fun word, after all (Perserschutt on wikipedia). Why is the Kritias Boy so called, but more interestingly, how is the weight balanced on his feet? What does that do to his buttocks? It is infuriating that for the first time visitors to the museum can walk around a three dimensional sculpture that was created to be seen in the round and there is no help offered to them to guide them in their appreciation. It is easy to appreciate the hair on both the Kritias Boy and the Blonde Boy when you know what to look for, but unfortunately most visitors do not. And why are there no analyses of the composition of the kentauromachy metopes contrasting those showing elegant use of space to those without? Finally - for the first time the friezes and metopes of the Parthenon are displayed in glorious 360 degrees, with their back surfaces exposed to the museum goers. This is the case with the balustrades of the temple of Athene Nike also. This is a joy to behold if, like me you are interested in the makers' marks and the pragmatic side of decorating a temple - ie how to fix the decoration to the temple itself. But again, it is mentioned nowhere that it is possible to see this and that the visitor may learn from this innovative way of displaying the exhibits.

It is snobby and elitist to throw art at the people without providing explanations and insight for those interested in learning how to appreciate it more.
I'm not saying there should be touch screens and multimedia mumbo-jumbo (although that would show a more 20th century approach to museum displays), just more information and the right sort of information. At the moment it is almost totally lacking in printed form and totally lacking in the form of walkman style audio tours. Even the jumbled Roman and late antique town under the pilotis of the museum are left completely unexplained, despite the marvels of modern engineering employed to protect them.



Lack of child-friendly ideas
Children do not exist, at least for the curators of the new acropolis museum and their handlers at the Ministry of Culture.

Very few of the exhibited items are accessible to children, those that are, are accessible by accident rather than by design. Even so, there is no printed information for children of the sort that one finds in museums in Rome which provoke the kids into interacting with their past.

All it takes is a sign with big font text asking kids some questions to get them thinking: Questions could range from the totally neutral: Why do you think the statue of the Kore has got one hand extended? To the (unacceptably) sentimentalist-political: What do you think the five Karyatids are thinking about the empty space next to them?


Both of these last two faults may be explained by the fact that there was no time. I realise that the three to four years or so between the closing of the old museum and the opening of the new one are a very short space of time (almost unimaginably short, approaching quantum-short) for the hiring of archaeologists with museological postgraduate qualifications to prepare texts for the visitors. Such people do exist, and I am sure they would have loved such a challenge. Time was not the problem. The problem is that the Ministry does not care, at all levels. From the guard in the Mycenaean room at the National Archaeological Museum who wouldn't know, if asked, where the Sesklo finds are (just through the door on the left) to all other levels of the hierarchy, apathy is king. The lustre of the exhibits is expected to carry the lacklustre effort made to dress them, but this, unfortunately, will no longer do.

So, we come to the final question: what is the role of a museum, in the 21st century? If the role of a museum is to teach or to communicate to the visitor about the exhibits, then the New Acropolis Museum fails. Other than presenting the exhibits, this museum does very little else. Granted, the architecture is amazing especially in the use of natural light.

However, the New Acropolis Museum does not explain nor does it help the visitor to understand the conditions which existed while the exhibits were being made, or why this is important to today's society.
I have been taught that one does not respect that which one does not know well. No wonder that in a society which seeks to impose admiration of the past without also seeking to promote understanding of that same past, we continue to show disrespect to ourselves and our heritages.

Given the state of the Ministry of Culture and its status as dumping ground for otherwise useless political has-beens (not forgetting the rotund fraudsters), it is no surprise that the Greek state has failed to make the most of the new museum. The problem is intimately linked to the leadership of the Ministry, because the problem is one of vision. There is no forward-thinking vision because those entrusted with the protection of Greece's heritage sit safe in their own blinkered world view: they cannot see beyond the walls of the offices surrounding the soft chairs to which their comfortable arses irrevocably adhere thanks to anachronistic civil service staffing laws.

The irony of naming the archaeo-web portal of the ministry "Odysseus" is not lost on many. It would have been fitting had the people of the ministry shared the hero's inquisitive nature and had allowed themselves to "get to know the cities and minds of many men" like he is said to have done.

We cannot assume that because we have the unique resource on our doorstep, that we know what to do with it and how to manage it. This last sentence alone is likely to rile the feathers of many within the musty, cocooned and introverted ranks of Greek academia.

So - final verdict: go to the museum, but learn about the exhibits before you set out.

I dreampt about Charlie a few nights ago

I did not actually see him in the dream, but he was there and it was funny how I never found myself face to face with him. Charlie died a few years ago. He had hurled himself off the top of a building in a far away land. I had known him since we had interacted at the Bryanston Greek summer camp in 1990. Turns out that he was friends with Kerridge at school and then he also turns up at college.

The thing is, in the dream, I only realised after I had woken up that I had been dreaming about a dead guy. It felt quite normal to be waiting around on a stage for a rehearsal for which Charlie was late and to be talking on the phone about him with someone and trying to persuade him by e-mail to send me his CV so we could work together. Of course he never came to the rehearsal, never replied to the mails and never took the job, but while it was frustrating that I couldn't find him, I never twigged that the underlying reason might have been that this was a dream and Charlie had in fact been dead for close to ten years.

Anyway - once again ave atque vale. Be sure you are remembered here yet and will be.

New acropolis museum - opening soon... or is it?

I am writing to complain about the sheer volume of information that is being poured on us Athenian Culture-Vultures about the opening of the new Acropolis Museum.

As of 3 June a mere 17 days away from the opening, no press release has been released by the Greek Ministry of Culture. Did I write Ministry of Culture, I meant to write the ministry for has-been ministers moved over here to keep a low profile while fat-man general secretary "bounce" Zachopoulos skims the cream off the milk.

So - where were we? Ah, yes. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Don't believe me? Look at the photo - screen grab from the press-release page of the MiniCult on 3 June. Mr. Samaras, the man who loved Greece enough to resign as Foreign Minister when the borders were opened in the early nineties seems less enamoured of Greece now. He has the perfect opportunity to bring the world's attention to this country and to our showcase super-duper-wow museum. Paging Mr. Samaras!

So, I wish I could write more about the opening. Truth is, I know nothing about it. There is no information on the site of the MiniCult and no information on the site of the museum itself other than the opening date of 20 June.

If I were a journalist in foreign parts I would not know anything about the opening of this museum. That is a shame, Mr. Samaras. And it's all yours.