Desmond saga continues

So, following up on my DIKATSA post from 2005, I went in January 2009 to the successor organisation, DOATAP, and had a huge argument with some needle-dick pencil pusher who wanted to tell me that I would only ever be recognized as a graduate of a technical college, because my course at uni was only three years long, and then left.

Now, three years on, I went again and showed the restraint of a man genuinely trying to understand what the fuck sort of logic lies behind the system. I was told to ring a number and talk to Mr. Papavlasopoulos who deals with my sort of degree.

I phoned today, spoke to a soft-spoken lady who fed me the same line about having my desmond recognized as being equivalent to a degree from a technical college, but suggested that I come on Wednesday to have a chat with Mr. P.

I am not holding my breath.

Merbakas: A byzantine jewel in the Argolid

The church just outside the modern village of Aghia Triada is dedicated to the dormition of the theotokos. It was built some time in the period between about a century before and after the fourth crusade. The actual dating is one of the great mysteries of the building as it rests to some extent on written evidence (which may or may not be flawed) for the building of a nearby stylistically similar church and to some extent on the immured ceramics. Τhe dating of these are also much debated by scholars, not least because the dating of the immured ceramics had been 'fixed' by a possibly inaccurate date for this church itself.

The village of Aghia Triada used to be known as Merbakas. The old name is largely forgotten outside Byzantist circles apart from its pejorative use in the phrase: "Καλά ρε φίλε, απ΄τον Μέρμπακα είσαι;" as used even into the 1990s by Nafplio kids to indicate a school friend is particularly stupid.

I first heard of the village in 1988 when touring the Peloponnese with JHWM (and PAGS) although there was no time to visit the church, and again in 1990 when SFM replaced PAGS. I don't think I actually saw the church itself until 1995 or even as late as 1998, when it was still serving as the cemetery church and the village cemetery itself still surrounded the church.

I have tried to drive past the church every time I have visited the area since then. Every time I visit, I see more and every time I leave I read more about it and around it and come back with more to look at. There is so much to look at in this one small Byzantine building and while something is urging me to insert the word intertextuality in here somewhere, I fear that so many years away from mildewey libraries may have blunted my ability to pull off that sort of writing...

Merbakas is unknown as a toponym elsewhere in the Balkans or even in Turkey. The word is not encountered in any of the languages of the peoples who have at some time established themselves in the Peloponnese. However, the Dutch village of Moerbeke happens to be the place of origin of William of Moerbeke, Latin bishop of Corinth, a Dominican and a pretty shit-hot classical scholar of his time. So while many chose to deny any link with Moerbeke for whatever reasons, if we do so, another William (almost contemporary with ours, but Franciscan and an Englishman from Ockham in Surrey) would have been rightly upset.

I cannot write about the similarities and differences with the churches at Areia and Chonikas, nor do I know enough about the ceramics to make some sort of judgment on the date of the church and therefore the likelihood of the patron being William of Moerbeke. Guy Sanders has a paper up on academia.edu in which he argues for the late date and the patronage of William. Although every time I read the paper I end up on different sides of the fence as to whether he convinces, the questions being asked are definitely going in the right direction.

The late date is supported by the ceramic evidence. The church has a whole lot of ceramic bowls immured in the walls. The mortar used has been shown to be one with the mortar used in the building of the walls: hence the bowls are contemporary with the original building, and dating the bowls will allow dating the church.




The bowls in this images are called Grid Iron Protomaiolica bowls. Similar bowls are immured in the walls of the Dormition at Gastouni which has been recently dated to the last quarter of the 13th Century. The bowls are the product of a Western (Italian) workshop. Other immured ceramics have an eastern provenance, such as the Zeuxippus ware from Constantinople. The choice of ceramics from both edges of the Greek world, east and west is used by Sanders to support his position.



This view from the apses gives an opportunity to see a number of features of the church. From the ground up, we have the three steps reminiscent of an ancient stylobate. Christianity standing on ancient foundations, or triumphing over the old religion? The lower courses actually use building blocks taken from the Argive Heraion a few kilometers distant, while the blocks in the higher courses were brought from Corinth, presumably quarried fresh from local stone.



The higher courses are in cloisonné style with decorative brick-work at the top made to look like a Greek key (meander).



The central apse, with its Gothic engaged columns in the trilobed sanctuary window, and more Greek key decorative brickwork. A meander is also visible running horizontally in the marble under the windows.

So, going back to the spolia... apart from the otherwise non-descript blocks from the Argive Heraion (which I still have yet to visit), there are two blocks of spolia with figured representations still on the church (a third is in Copenhagen, for some reason), in addition to a classical sundial reincorporated into the wall of the church and two blocks bearing inscriptions.



The sundial is on the south wall towards the SW corner.



One of the two, figured spolia. The low relief sculpture is a classical grave marker with three figures on it. There is an inscription which reads something along the lines of "[Ε]ΥΠΟΡΟΣ ΕΥΠΡΑΞΙΣ [Ζ]ΗΑΝΤΕΡΩ[Σ]" which is probably three proper names. The Inscriptiones Graecae online gives the text as: Εὔπορος Ἀντέρωτος. Εὔπραξις ζῇ. Ἀντέρως and if I had not looked it up in the concordance, I would not have noticed the lower line of text underneath the text Εὔπορος. Have I mentioned how much I love the internet? The inscription is known as IG IV 539. Given the probably correct reading in the IG catalogue, it is probably a marker for Euporos (on the left) who was the son of Anteros on the right and is survived by his mother Eupraxis (centre).

It is said that the village ultimately gets its modern name from this grave marker, by way of the village church, which was dedicated to the holy trinity because of this very prominent spolion on the corner of the village's cemetery church.



The second stele on the north wall of the church, shows two more classical figures, with no discernable inscription. The placing of the two grave stelai and the subject matter are used to argue for the involvement of a Latin churchman in the foundation and building of the church at a time when the argument over the filioque was ongoing. The north stele shows two figures (argued to represent the father and the son from whom the unseen spirit is presumably processing in a western way) and the south stele shows the holy trinity in all its orthodox oriental glory. I don't buy into this in a wholehearted way, although as circumstantial evidence, I feel it ought to be mentioned.

Next up, the two spolia with inscriptions, one placed near the north door, the other near the east door. The one near the east door I did not know about and as a result, I have not got a photograph of it (and it is not immediately obvious when looking for it, else I would have noticed).



This is the first inscription, reading: Q(UINTO) CAECILIO C(AII) F(ILIO) METELO | IMPERATORI ITALICI | QVEI ARGEIS NEGOTIA(NTUR). Now the Metelus in question was the chappy who conquered Crete for Rome, thereby clearing the Aegean and this part of the Mediterranean of piracy. To me the echoes with the council of Lyons which amongst other things (such as the union of the churches) sought to suppress piracy are a little faint, but it has been argued that the founder of the church was aware of the historical Metellus and wished to make such a link. In any case, it is strange that a text in latin script which would not have been understood at all by the local population was immured with the inscription visible.

The final spolion bears a Greek dedicatory inscription and is immured close to the east door. As I have already mentioned, I have not seen it.



The bell tower above the east door, where the spolion bearing a Greek inscription is to be found.



The dome colonettes, showing gothic architectural influences. The crocket capitals are a decorative element common in Gothic architecture. This element is also used as an ornament on furniture and metalwork in the Gothic style. The name derives from the diminutive of the French croc, meaning "hook", due to the resemblance of crockets to a bishop's crosier.



And final photo – the south door, which is built in the Byzantine rather than the western style (all other doors on the building are built in the western style). In Byzantine architecture, the jambs are separate from the matrix of the walls, as they are here. In western doors, the jambs bond with the walls.

Next time I have to go back, with all this in mind, to take photographs which illustrate the points in question better. As it is, the information on the church I got from the internet fit reasonably nicely with the photos I took, but not perfectly. Next time, it would be nice to get inside too to see the frescoes of St. Leo of Catania and to see how truly western some of the non-figured frescoes are.

Kerameikos cemetery and museum

On the Sunday after Easter, I took A to the Kerameikos. I wanted to have another look at the sub-mycenaean and protogeometric pots after my visit to Nauplio archaeological museum a week before and the Easter holidays seemed to give themselves to this, what with the gentle beginnings of spring coming on. It was going to be quite an adventure. I had not yet been left alone in charge of A out of doors for quite so many hours, and we had public transport and dangerous roads to deal with (and a lot more besides).

The metro station called Kerameikos (despite what the name may suggest) is not the closest stop to the site and museum. The closest is actually the Thiseio stop, but this does not have the escalators to help with arriving and leaving with a pram. Do not make the same mistake I made and expect anyone in the vicinity of the metro station to know how to go to the homonymous archaeological site and museum from the metro. Do not even expect them to know that the stop they are standing in is named after the old cemetery which used to stand in the potter's quarter. That's the sort of mistake that idiots with over-idealized images of their own countries make.

Finally getting oriented with the GPS maps on my swanky Nokia 5800 (which them promptly proceded to die on me) we set off up Pireos towards the entrance of the Kerameikos. At some point in between death-defying maneuvers necessitated by the lack of pavement on some parts of the road, I realized that A. was missing a sock. She had been playing with them, and evidently she'd been playing with the sock formerly on her right foot a little too much. We proceeded barefoot for the rest of the journey. It was a Sunday, early afternoon. The fleasiest part of the flea market is set up just outside the entrance to the site and with it a plethora of 'used' goods, prospective buyers and the sort of people who trade in used goods of uncertain provenance. Great.

Once we found the entrance, behind a stack (literally) of used stereos and speaker systems, the museum and surprisingly the site itself are quite pram-friendly.

The museum is essentially a square building with an atrium-like light well in the centre. Gone are the old-school wooden cases from years ago (that you can still see in museums like Thera and Naxos). Everything is new and shiny, including the patches of damp causing the paint to bubble and crumble in some places.

One side of the square houses the sculpture - two kouroi, a number of sphinxes and some grave stele, together with a boundary marker with interesting epigraphy. There are also some classical family grave markers of the overly classical style which is too much for me. The exhibition passes into the Atrium where the large marble bull memorial draws all the attention and smaller low relief works sit around the edges overshadowed by the bull. From there, we start the history of Athenian pottery…

The first leg covers the sub-mycenaean, protogeometric and geometric eras.

Next we have the first representational ceramics, going through to the mature black and red figure eras.

The final leg of the square has more classical and too much hellenistic pottery. Labelling is in the most rudimentary name rank and serial number style which characterises so many Greek museums, which is a pity as there is a lot of potential to explain aspects of the ancient world in this museum.

Pieces I particularly enjoyed are:


Grave marker - bearded boxer: The piece was found re-incorporated into the Themistoclean walls of Athens as a spolion. It is remarkable for being a quite individualistic portrayal of a presumably recognisable person at a time when portraiture was not really developed.



Boundary marker, showing the boundary of the road for Eleusis (a nearby town with a very important sanctuary, the road for which passes through the cemetery of the Kerameikos): ΗΟΡΟΣ ΤΕΣ ΟΔΟ[Υ] ΤΕΣ ΕΛΕΥΣΙΝΑΔΣΙ
It is interesting to see the H being used as a rough breathing on the word Horos, but not on Hodos and also interesting to see the E used where we would expect an H. Guys who dig epigraphy could probably date it on these grounds alone to the nearest five years, but this kinda thing ain't my bag, baby.



It's archaic. I like it for the hair, for the hands and for the smile, although I did not make a note, so I cannot write too much about this.



The cinerary urn from tomb 18/I of the Kerameikos cemetery in Athens dates from the 10th century BC and aside from the wavy lines, sports one of the earliest depictions of horses in Attic vase painting.



From a tomb dating between 750 and 700 BC. The depiction of the warrior is pretty standard - helmet plume, beard, twin spears and swords together with a sort of "boeotian" shield. I like this sherd because you can clearly see the individual brushstrokes used to make up the warrior and at the same time you have a nice look into a cross section of the fabric.



This vase dates from the first quarter of the eighth century BC and depicts two men taming a horse. It is one of the earliest depictions of the human form in Attic vase painting.



From a tomb dating between 740 and 730 BC. The tripod shape is one associated with ritual use, burnt offerings or funerary meals. The decoration is split into two bands - a frieze along the top showing standard geometric-era warriors and little vignetted warriors wrestling lions in the legs. The depiction of the warrior is pretty standard - helmet plume, beard, twin spears and swords together with a sort of "boeotian" shield, alternating with the standard round shield. The lion in the lower register is depicted as a ferocious beast, but clearly not one with which the artist is familiar.

More pots can be viewed on Flickr here: A visit to the Kerameikos in April 2010

We then went outside with A. for a photograph together in the Kerameikos proper.

Reopened archaeological museum in Nafplio / Nauplion / Nauplio

On one edge of Constitution Square, opposite the old mosque which now serves as a cinema, sit the Venetian-era barracks of the town's military garrison. This building now houses the offices of the local ephorate of antiquities and the town's archaeological museum. I am particularly fond of the ephorate here as they issued me my very first free-entry card to the antiquities of Greece and did so in one day! It was not until many years later that I realized how lucky I was to get the card issued so fast.

External view of the Museum of Nafplio on Constitution Square.

Following a lengthy refurbishment which seemed to last most of the present decade and which saw little seismic stickers put all over the building and the bulk of the Mycenaean finds go to the new museum at Mycenae, the Nafplio Archaeological Museum has been re-opened with a new layout and a refreshingly decent set of texts accompanying the finds. A lot of stuff has come out of storage, not least the Francthi child burial (more about that later) so the visit I made in April this year felt in part like a visit to old friends, and in part like a new museum altogether.

The museum houses finds from many of the sites of the Argolid, including Tiryns, Asine, Berbati, Francthi, Dendra / Midea, Kazarma, Nauplion itself and probably more that I do not recall. It used to be the best collection of Mainland Bronze Age stuff in Greece after the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, although now I would think the title of second best has to go to the Mycenae museum itself.

The museum is organized on the first and second floor of the building as before, with the first floor dedicated to the prehistoric periods and the second to the Iron Age onwards. The finds are exhibited either according to findspot / period or according to type - meaning that we have all the Franchthi finds in one corner, and all of the Dendra finds in another, but at the same time, the MH vessels are placed separately from the figurines, which are separate again from a bunch of sherds with imprints on their bases showing either mats or leaves.

The truth is that visiting with A in the pram was not 100% practical (despite the AMEA / wheelchair lift which we preferred not to use) so we did not spend too much time on the top floor which in any case has marginal interest.

The Bronze Age floor or more accurately Neolithic and Helladic floor was really quite fun. First in on the left, there are the finds from the Kazarma tholos including some nice palatial style jars, together with a good photograph of the state of the tholos at present (only the back wall is standing). Moving round the room clockwise, we have the cemetery of Dendra along the wall, joined by Asine later on and the Dendra panoply in the middle of this part of the room. The panoply is displayed nicely along with other bronze finds from the tomb allowing the visitor to build a good sense of what goes with what and what finds are from which tombs. The Dendra finds are displayed next to a scale model showing the placement of each tomb in the hillside. This provides another valuable link to the findspot which enhances the visitor's understanding of the finds as part of a functional whole rather than as individual pieces of art each independent of those around it.

Kazarma: display of palatial style vases together with other grave goods.

Dendra: Model of the cemetery showing the relative locations of the Tholos Tomb, the Cuirass tomb and the other Chamber tombs.

Dendra: Nice schematic LH murex shell on grave goods .

Dendra: the finds from the Cuirass tomb, all together in one case.

Further down we pass the Asine finds, with some good diagrams of the tombs as excavated and this is followed by some cases containing only figurines, whether wheelmade or hand made from a number of different locations and of different sizes, all presented together. These include the famous Lord of Asine.

Asine: sketches showing the findspots and context of the finds together with decent texts.

Asine: the "poor" man's Vapheio cup! ceramic Vapheio cup showing a goat rather than the bull one would expect...

Various sources: various figurines whether wheel-made or coiled, all together in one case. The so called Lord of Asine is the solitary head to the right of the image.

Moving on, there are finds from the MH (including some stirrup jars with simple painted motifs) and part of the plaster floor of the megaron at Tiryns showing two dolphins, heraldically opposed.

Various: MH era ceramics, including a coarse-ware bowl with carbonised figs.

Tiryns: painted decoration from the floor of the throne room of the megaron.

Moving on clockwise, we enter the MH period properly and this is represented by burial goods from Berbati and elsewhere. The finds reproduced in the burial of the MH with articulated skeleton are in stark contrast to the finds on show from the LH graves of Dendra.

MH burial reproduction: A is surprised at the austere nature of the grave goods.

The EH is represented by impressed hearths and pottery from Tiryns and Berbati, and the room finally closes with the NL just before the door leading us to feel that perhaps we should have gone anti-clockwise rather than clockwise round the room! Apart from the Urfirnis pot which used to be the highlight of the Franchthi section in the old museum, there are now a great number of small finds on display along with one of the famous child burials of NL Franchthi - again articulated with the grave goods in place in the display. The Franchthi section also has photographs and drawings of the cave itself with much information.

EH Pot bases: Impressions with plaster "positives", with some EH sauceboats in the background (sauceboats are the archetypal EHII type shape).

EH hearth: one of a number of such ceramic hearths decorated with relief patterns. This one is from Tiryns.

EH hearth: one of a number of such ceramic hearths decorated with relief patterns. This one is from Berbati (I think)...

Franchthi cave: Decent text introducing the visitor to the complexities of the NL.

Franchthi cave: Urfirnis ware - the best of the best of NL ceramics.

Franchthi cave: infant burial on display.

Franchthi cave: repaired ceramic bowl - shows the value of ceramics at the very beginning of their use.

The texts are well thought-out and the layout of the finds (especially the articulated skeletons) adds much to the visitors' understanding.

As I said - this is one of my fave museums anyway, but I think I have to give it a thumbs-up for the way it has been refurbished, re-planned and re-opened. Well done Δ ΕΠΚΑ!

Second floor: ceramic masks - an opportunity for some interaction with A.

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...