The Acropolis and its new museum

Abstract

The new Acropolis Museum was opened in June 2009 with worldwide fanfare. For this was for the Athenian acropolis – the Acropolis. After two lower galleries, visitors reach the top floor and find what is now the world's most exciting coup of archaeological presentation – a sudden view of the Parthenon. We stand there in the middle of a gallery that sets out the temple's sculpted pediments, metopes and friezes according to the original plan. They are hung on a framework that matches the Parthenon's colonnades at the same orientation and scale and on the same plan as the great temple itself (Figure 1); so that, walking along the gallery, we can imagine ourselves in the temple by just looking out at it on the Acropolis.

Our fourth Lascaux

“…The Chauvet Caverne suffers similar and related problems (James 2016: 523). Nor is it only in constricted spaces that numbers jeopardise appreciation (James 2009: 1150). Crowding is unconducive to learning about the archaeology, let alone to a ‘romantic gaze’.…”

The Caryatids in the New Acropolis Museum: Out of Sight, Out of Light, Out of Mind

“…In the New Acropolis Museum, however, the manner in which the Caryatids have been presented as freestanding artworks has utterly deprived the marble women of the practical architectural function they were originally created to fulfil. Scholars such as Neil James have also highlighted the rather cramped nature of the Caryatids' presentation in the New Acropolis Museum, arguing: 'It looks as though the caryatids are intended to be admired from the other side of the adjacent stairwell but there is no room for that there', before going on to add that their ' display is compromised by want of surrounding space' (James 2009(James : 1148. Such an assessment is, however, rather unfair; I have rarely experienced any lack of space in the Erechtheum display and, unless a large tour group spends an inordinate amount of time near the statues, visitors will generally find it an easy matter to inspect the Caryatids, even during the peak tourist months of the summer when the museum is at its most crowded.…”

“…Although the sculptures from the Parthenon can no longer be reinserted into the monument, nonetheless, it can now be claimed that, were they returned to Athens, then their display on the top-floor gallery of the New Acropolis Museum would allow a visual 'reunification' of the marbles with the temple they were created to adorn. Soon after the opening of the museum in 2009, Neil James would therefore comment: 'Within sight of the Parthenon itself, the claim for restitution is made clearly' (James 2009(James : 1149. The British-based Greek archaeologist Yannis Hamilakis would also write: 'This museum will need to be understood primarily as a material intervention within the politics of vision.…”

Museum of Light: The New Acropolis Museum and the Campaign to Repatriate the Elgin Marbles

“…They are hung on a framework that matches the Parthenon's colonnades at the same orientation and scale and on the same plan as the great temple itself … so that, walking along the gallery, we can imagine ourselves in the temple by just looking out at it on the Acropolis.' 76 By contrast, the sculptures displayed in the British Museum are considerably more difficult to relate to the original temple, with Mary Beard noting that the manner in which the presentation of the frieze and rest of the Elgin Marbles as displayed in the Duveen Gallery is difficult for most visitors to relate to their original positions on the Parthenon because they are displayed 'inside out.' 77 Were the Marbles from the Elgin Collection ever to make their reappearance in Athens, the New Acropolis Museum would undoubtedly be a superb location in which to reunite them with the rest of the surviving sculptures.…”