Delphi Archaeological Museum
Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Δελφών | |
Greek antiquities | |
Visitors | 137,550 (2009)[1] |
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Owner | Greek Ministry of Culture (10th ephorate of prehistoric and classical antiquities |
Website | "Outline on the website of the Greek Ministry of Culture". |
Delphi Archaeological museum (
Organised in fourteen rooms on two levels, the museum mainly displays statues, including the famous Charioteer of Delphi, architectural elements, like the frieze of the Siphnian Treasury and ex votos dedicated to the sanctuary of Pythian Apollo, like the Sphinx of Naxos. The exhibition floor space is more than 2270 m², while the storage and conservation rooms (mosaics, ceramics and metals) take up 558 m². Visitors are also catered to by an entrance hall, a cafeteria and a gift shop.[2]
History of the museum
First museum
A first, rather small museum was inaugurated on 2 May 1903 to celebrate the end of the first great archaeological campaign of
Subsequent phases
Despite the admiration it inspired to the Greek and international community, already in the 1930s the museum was becoming too small to accommodate new findings or the increasing number of tourists.[2] In addition, its arrangement (or, rather, the absence of it) and the plaster restorations were being increasingly criticized. Finally, its entire appearance was criticized as a little too "French" in a period which insisted on "Greekness." The construction of a new building was launched in 1935. The new museum was representative of the architectural trends of the Interwar period and was accomplished in 1939, including a new arrangement of the objects by the Professor of Archaeology at Thessaloniki, Constantinos Romaios. The reorganisation of the Archaic collections was entrusted to the French archaeologist Pierre de La Coste-Messelière, who discarded the plaster restorations of significant artefacts, including that of the Siphnian Treasury, which had become one of the principal attractions. The antiquities were presented in a chronological order, listed and labelled.[3](pp 18, 24)
However, this arrangement was only briefly in use. The outbreak of
The renovation of the museum was entrusted to the architect Patroklos Karantinos and the archaeologist Christos Karouzos was sent from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens to rearrange the collection, under the supervision of the ephor of Delphi, Ioanna Constantinou. Karatinos created two new exhibition halls and modified the structure to allow more natural light into the building. The arrangement of the collection remained chronological, but a greater focus was placed on the sculpture, with statues increasingly separated from their architectural contexts. The museum reopened its doors in 1961.[3](p 25) and soon became one of the most visited tourist attractions in Greece: in 1998, it received more than 300,200 visitors, almost as many as the National Archaeological Museum of Athens in the same period (325,000 visitors).[1][3](p 25)
Current Museum
Between 1999 and 2003, the museum underwent yet another phase of renovations, carried out by the Greek architect Alexandros Tombazis. These included the construction of a new facade in a contemporary style and a new hall for the charioteer. The rest of the museum was redesigned in a modern style and adjusted to facilitate the circulation of visitors. A new lobby, a large cafeteria and a gift shop were also created.[2] The collection was rearranged in order to reconcile the need to display the main attractions of the museum effectively and the wish to present the latest theories and discoveries of archaeological and historical scholarships. An effort was also made to illustrate hitherto neglected exhibits like the classical facade of the Temple of Apollo. The museum opened its doors once more for its centenary.[3](pp 15, 25)
Collections
The collections of the Delphi Archaeological Museum are arranged chronologically in fourteen rooms.
Rooms 1 & 2
The first two rooms are devoted to the most ancient objects. The exhibition starts with Mycenaean finds, particularly clay figurines, among which a significant female figure seated on a three-legged chair, which has been viewed as a precursor of the later tripods. The majority of the exhibits, however, are bronze votive offerings, dating to the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, including bronze tripods and cauldrons with decorative elements inspired by mythical creatures, such as griffins, as well as bronze figurines of warriors. The items displayed date to the late Geometric and early Archaic periods.
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Bronze figurines, mostly warriors
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Head of a Griffon (bronze)
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Bronze votive shield
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Bronze helmets
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Daedelic style kouros, bronze
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Torso of a kouros
Room 3
Room 3 is dominated by the
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Cleobis and Biton
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Odysseus under the belly of a ram.
Room 4
This is dedicated to the very precious offerings found in an pit on the Sacred Way: the silver statue of a bull and the chryselephantine statues[4](p 415) which are thought to represent the Apollonian triad, namely Apollo, Artemis and their mother, Leto. The room is reminiscent of a safe where visitors are let in to admire the precious objects.
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Torso of the chryselephantine sculpture of Artemis.
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Torso of the chryselephantine sculpture of Apollo.
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Torso of the chryselephantine sculpture of Leto.
Room 5
This room displays the
The most impressive exhibit, however, is the sphinx. It is an enormous statue which crowned an ionic column and capital, totaling 12 meters in height. The column stood close to the Halos. The sphinx was dedicated by the city of Naxos, a wealthy island of the Aegean in its prime time, i.e. between 575 and 560 BCE. An inscription at the base of the column renews the right of "promanteia" for Naxos in the 4th century BCE.
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Part of one of the friezes of the Siphnian Treasury
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East pediment of the Siphnian Treasury
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Part of the frieze from to the Treasury of the Siphnians
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Caryatid from the Siphnian Treasury
Room 6
This room contains the archaic and classical facades of the Temple of Apollo.[4](pp 415-416) The archaic sculptures, made of Parian marble, include a carriage with four horses, carrying Apollo. To the left of the carriage stood three female figures, possibly the daughters of
The sculptures of the pediments of the 4th century temple were made of
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Sculptures from archaic Temple of Apollo.
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Sculpture from classical Temple of Apollo
Room 7
These two rooms contain objects from the
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Metope of the Treasury of the Athenians
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Metope of the Treasury of the Athenians
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Metope of the Treasury of the Athenians
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Metope of the Treasury of the Athenians
Room 8
The room contains the fragments of the Delphic Hymns and the Attic white-ground kylix with the depiction of Apollo playing the lyre.
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FirstDelphic Hymn,1st & 2nd verse
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First Delphic Hymn,3nd verse
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Second Delphic Hymn
Rooms 9 & 10
The objects in these two rooms come from the Temple of Athena Pronaia.[4](p 416) Among them stand out sculptures from the Treasury of the Massaliots and the Doric Treasury. Two acroteria in the form of running female figures have been attributed to the temple of Athena. Architectural members on the north wall of the room such as simae, gutters in the form of lion-head and acroteria in the form of anthemia, as well as parts of Nike acroteria belong also to various buildings of the sanctuary, date to the late archaic and classical periods and preserve traces of their initial colours. In the middle of the room there are free-standing cases, in which are displayed three bronze figurines, namely a Corinthian figurine of a man playing the double flute (460–450 BCE), two naked athletes dated to the same period and coming from an Attic workshop, and a magnificent bronze incense-burner in the form of a "peplophoros", a female figure holding above her head a cauldron for burning the incense. All three figurines were found in the pit of the Sacred Way along with the chryselephantine statues and several other finds.
Along the western side there is a case displaying bronze figurines dated to the first half of the 5th century BCE, as well as parts of larger bronze statues. Among the latter stand out the part of a crane and the part of a himation decorated with maeander motifs with inlay copper.
Room 10, on the other hand, contains parts of the
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Bronze sculptures of the 5th century BCE
Room 11
The room contains Late Classical and early Hellenistic objects, among which the Dancers of Delphi and the ex voto of Daochos.[4](p416) Daochos II was the
The Dancers of Delphi on the other hand, is a column identified due to the inscription of its base. It was dedicated by the Athenians, made of Pentelic marble. The column ended in a composition consisting of acanthus leaves out of which sprang three female figures with their hands lifted, as if dancing. They probably held a tripod (not extant) crowned by the omphalos displayed also in the same room. Among the other important exhibits of the room counts a statue of Apollo in the Patroos type and the statue of a man wearing the himation, dated to the 5th century BCE as well as the statue of an aged man with a himation leaving the right shoulder and the breast uncovered, identified as a priest of Apollo or as a philosopher and dated to 280 BCE.
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Dedication of Daochos
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Statue ofPharsala, possibly by Lysippos or his son Euthykrates, part of the dedication of Daochos
Room 12
Room 12 contains Late
(p 416) The main exhibit of the statue of Antinous, favorite of the emperor Hadrian; it is probably one of the best specimens of the depictions of the young man which were erected all over the Roman Empire after his untimely death under order of the emperor. Close to Antinous stands a head of a man probably depicting Titus Quinctius Flamininus, the Roman general who conquered Delphi in 198 BCE. In the middle of the room stands a round altar made of Pentelic marble and coming from the Sanctuary of Athena Pronaia. It is decorated in three bands with cyma recta and astragalus patterns and twelve female figures. It dates to the 2nd century BCE. Another important exhibit is the pedestal with the frieze in relief constituting the Monument of Aemilius Paullus.Along the south side of the room are displayed parts of the Roman frieze decorating the theatre. They consist of depictions of scenes from the life and deeds of Heracles, such as the
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Bust of the Roman consul Titus Quinctius Flamininus
Room 13
This is the room of the Charioteer.[4](p 417) The statue constituted one of the finest specimens of 5th century bronze sculpture, of the so-called austere style. It belonged to a larger complex including the chariot, the horses, and possibly a stable boy.
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Charioteer of Delphi, bronze, 475 BCE,
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Another view of the Charioteer
Room 14
This last room is devoted to the final years of the sanctuary.[4](p 417) There are displayed three marble heads: A head of Heracles dated possibly to the 1st century AD, the head of a philosopher of Late Antiquity, dated to the 4th century AD and a head of a priest or philosopher dated to the 2nd century AD. In the past it had been identified as a head of Plutarch. A hermaic stele nearby bears an dedicatory inscription to Plutarch and it probably held a head statue of the ancient author, but the latter has not been preserved.
The ground floor gallery
The ground floor room contains finds from the necropolis of Delphi, from houses, from the
See also
References
- ^ a b "General Secretariat of the National Statistical Service". Government of Greece. 2009. Archived from the original on 13 February 2015.
- ^ Greek Ministry of Culture.
- ^ ISBN 978-960-89339-0-3.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Grèce continentale [Mainland Greece]. Guide bleu (in French). pp. 414–417.
External links
- "Website of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Tourism".
- "Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs".[permanent dead link]
- Banou, Eleni S.; Bournias, Leonidas K. (2014). Kerameikos. Delphi Archaeological Museum (e‑book). Electronic library. Latsis Foundation. ISBN 978-960-98364-8-7. Archived from the originalon 25 May 2015. (select THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF DELPHI)
- "ancient-greece.org".
- "greece-museums.com". Archived from the original on 23 June 2007.
- "Delphi, Greece". planetware.com.
- "Delphi Museum: a few words for an [sic] unique museum". thedelphiguide.com.