Acropolis Museum

Acropolis Museum

This dazzling modernist museum at the foot of the Acropolis' southern slope showcases its surviving treasures still in Greek possession. While the collection covers the Archaic and Roman periods, the emphasis is on the Acropolis of the 5th century BC, considered the apotheosis of Greece's artistic achievement. The museum cleverly reveals layers of history, floating over ruins with the Acropolis visible above, showing the masterpieces in context.

As you enter the museum grounds, look through the plexiglass floor to see the ruins of an ancien Athenian neigbourhood.

Bathed in natural light the museum exposes the greatness of the Greek Athenian civilization . The Archaic Gallery on the first floor is a veritable forest of statues, mostly votive offerings to Athena. These include stunning examples of the 6th century kore(maidens)- statues of young women in draped clothing and elaborate braids, usually carrying a pomegranate, wreath or bird.The 570 BC statue of a youth bearing a calf is one of the rare male statues found. There are also bronze figurines and artefacts from temples predating the Parthenon (destroyed by the Persians), including wonderful pedimental sculptures such as Hercules slaying the Lernaian Hydra and a lioness devouring a bull. Also on this floor are five Caryatids, the maiden columns that held up the Erechtheion (the sixth is in the British Museum), and a giant floral akrotirion (a decorative element capping a gable) that once crowned the southern ridge of the Parthenon pediment.

The museum’s crowning glory is the top-floor Parthenon Gallery, a glass atrium built in alignment with the temple, and a virtual replica of the cella of the Parthenon, which can be seen from the gallery. It showcases the temple’s sculptures, metopes and 160m-long frieze, which for the first time in over 200 years is shown in sequence as one narrative about the Panathenaic Procession. The Procession starts at the southwest corner of the temple, with two groups splitting off and meeting on the east side for the delivery of the peplos to Athena. Interspersed between the golden-hued originals are stark-white plaster replicas of the missing pieces – the controversial Parthenon Marbles hacked off by Lord Elgin in 1801 and later sold to the British Museum (more than half the frieze is in London) – making a compelling case for their reunification.

H Global Rankings 2016

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

2. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 

3. State Hermitage Museum and Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, Russia 

4. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France 

5. National Anthropology Museum, Mexico 

6. September 11 Memorial, New York 

7. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain 

8. British Museum, London, UK 

9. Acropolis Museum, Athens 

10. Vasa Museum, Stockholm, Sweden

General Information

Location:Dionysiou Areopagitou 15, Athina 117 42

Hours: Summer season hours (1 April - 31 October)

Monday                                   8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.    (last admission: 3:30 p.m.)
Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday    8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.    (last admission: 7:30 p.m.)
Friday                                     8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.  (last admission: 9:30 p.m.)
Saturday/Sunday                       8:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.    (last admission: 7:30 p.m.)

Winter season hours (1 November - 31 March)
Monday - Thursday    9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.    (last admission: 4:30 p.m.)
Friday                     9:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.  (last admission: 9:30 p.m.)
Saturday/Sunday       9:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m.    (last admission: 7:30 p.m.)

• Closed: 1 January, Easter Sunday, 1 May, 25 and 26 December
• On Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve (24 and 31 December), the Acropolis Museum opens from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
• On August Full Moon and European Night of Museums, the Acropolis Museum operates until 12 midnight.T

Tickets:

• General admission fee: €5
• Tickets are available for sale either at the Museum’s Ticket Desk or via its e-ticketing service.

Free entry: 6 March (In Memory of Melina Mercouri), 25 March, 18 May (International Museum Day), 28 October