July 7 more about Athens' Acropolis

We had one day left on our bus ticket so we headed for the Acropolis Museum which is an archaeological museum built to house every artifact found on the archaeological site of Athens' Acropolis and on the surrounding slopes, from the Greek Bronze Age to Roman and Byzantine Greece.  It is truly excellent.  The amount of work they have done to rescue, in some cases, and to preserve some of the stunning marbles is almost incomprehensible. The museum is located by the southeastern slope of the Acropolis hill, on the ancient road that led up to the ‘sacred rock’ and was built over an existing archaeological site. The approach to the construction of this building over this historically sensitive site was quite clever. Large holes were drilled for a dozen or more pillars and their foundations secured. Once in place, the entire archaeological site was covered in sand to protect the excavations. Opened in June 2009, today the museum crouches above that old excavation site and exhibits well over 4000 objects. It is a modern beauty.

Above in the museum itself there is massive conservation program to recover and protect the ancient artefacts of the Acropolis. This cost and expertise is extensive. 

The use of glass from top floor to the excavation site below is very effective
 and the floor in places is sloped mimicking the slopes of the Acropolis

This gallery held many ancient marbles; no photos were allowed

The museum is full of amazing marble figures. I experimented with my iPhone to
highlight just one of the multitude. Stunning isn’t she!?

The young Dionysos with theatrical mask in hand sits on the
shoulder of Pappopilenos, his tutor. C2nd BC

Heracles fighting Triton

This huge sculpture represents the mythological Heracles fighting Triton, a merman sea deity half man and half fish or dolphin (Poseidon and Amphitrite are his parents). Heracles was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene.

From the Western pediment of the Patheon

The conservation-restoration techniques are fascinating and mysterious to me. We watched a video that showed how they clean the black crust and shoot deposits from artefacts using laser technology. The laser technique has been especially developed for the project by the Acropolis Museum together with the Institute of Electronic Structure & Laser at the Foundation for Research and Technology in Crete. Here’s a snippet of how it’s done. 

After a wee rest and cool drink, we climbed aboard the bus and headed for the National Botanical Gardens which occupies a huge green space in the centre of Athens.

While Lindsay went in search of birds I found a peaceful spot to read.

The Zappieon - a grand hall built in the 1880s for the 1st modern Olympic games,
now it is used as a conference centre.

It had been a long and rather tiring day so we were glad to sit down to dinner - tonight we had a delicious Indian meal at the hole in the wall near to our hotel; they remembered us and put extra spice in for us (the Athenians don't like hot spicy food)!  

The Theatrou district is rather rundown but quite colourful