Date: Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Partners for the day: Ben Silverman (text) Neha Shetty (images)
Site(s): Plataea, fortress of Eleutherai, Nemea, dam and tholoi near Tiryns.
Museum(s): Thebes, Nemea
Principal Buildings/Monuments: Temple of Zeus, bath, stadium at Plataea, dam walls, tholoi
Time Spent on Each Site: from ca. 8:00 AM to ca. 5:30 PM [9.5 hours, including travel time]
Weather: 60s, sunny
Today was our first full day of mainland sites, as the group visited Nemea, the fortress of Eleutherai, Plataea and a dam and two tholoi near Tiryns. The group also went to two museums: the Thebes Archaeological Museum and the Nemea Museum. Travel time took up a large portion of the day, but we still managed to see a variety of mainland buildings, including a fortress, a stadium and impressive underground tombs.
The Archaeological Museum of Thebes contains an excellent collection of material from 3000 B.C. to the Roman period from Thebes and other excavations. The objects of different size, material date impressed me, as did the general layout of the museum. Yet, I felt the courtyard in front of the museum lacked organization and exposed the remains to the elements. The museum also suffers at times from poor labeling, but despite these flaws the effectively displays a large variety of interesting objects.
By containing many objects in a disorganized fashion, the courtyard seems disappointing and unfortunate, but also impresses the visitor. Upon entering the front gate, the visitor stumbles upon a large amount of ancient blocks scattered all over the courtyard. It resembles a yard sale for ancient ruins, out on somebody’s lawn for visitors to pick through. Not only does the courtyard look unattractive, the objects are not protected from rain, sun and pollution as they are left on the ground outside the museum. However, as I walked through the courtyard I began to appreciate it. In one area, column bases and stone slabs combine to form a picnic table, and this setup I found particularly interesting. After becoming upset that such important objects were meant for people to sit on and eat on top of, I started to become intrigued by the table. It seemed impressive to me that this museum had so many ancient remains that it could actually make rudimentary furniture out of them. It was as if the designers of the courtyard were telling the average visitor: “Look at all of this. Do you see how much stuff we have? If we can leave these objects out here and make tables out of them, can you imagine what is inside on display? Column capitals are our seats for a picnic table. The material is going to have to be more interesting than that to make it inside.” Thus, the visitor becomes eager to see what the museum has on display if such interesting pieces are relegated to the courtyard.
The museum presents a unique collection of material without overwhelming the visitor. The museum has four main rooms, A-D, that contain different types of objects. Room A and Room C have around twenty freestanding objects, including Archaic kouroi in Room A and grave stelai in Room C. Room B has more objects, including pottery and jewelry, that are on display cases that surround the room. Room D has similar cases with pottery but also has beautifully preserved larnakes in the center of the room. This room structure creates a smooth path through the museum in which the viewer does not become exhausted from all of the material. That is, before the visitor sees the famous ivory throne legs, Mycenaean armor or stirrup jars in Room B, he or she progresses through Room A with its twenty large pieces of sculpture. By doing so, he or she arrives at Room B without already having seen a large amount of material. Thus, he or she can spend a significant amount of time in Room B looking at the many cases and reading the labels. The visitor then gets break by moving through Room C, as the room contains half a dozen large grave stelai and some statues, which, like Room A, do not require bending over cases to read long labels and examine small pottery. After this break, the viewer enters the final room refreshed and ready to spend time looking at the magnificent larnakes. Thus, the layout enables the visitor to see a significant amount of different objects without feeling overloaded with information.
The museum contains informative labeling, but at times the labels are only in Greek, and therefore the museum restricts access to these valuable pieces of information. There are many examples of good labels in both Greek and English in the museum. For instance, the label by the headless cult statues of Artemis gives the date and possible explanations of the statues and also translates an inscription on one of them. However, some displays contain labels written in Greek only, and these texts provide information for noteworthy objects, like the Mycenaean armor and the ivory throne legs. The museum sells a guide in four languages, but it costs eleven Euros, and it seems unfortunate that the only way to get context on certain items involves purchasing a book. Nevertheless, the majority of the exhibits have texts in Greek and English that give the reader a solid background.
The Thebes Archaeological Museum, amidst a city of poorly maintained archaeological sites, stands out as an organized and, for the most part, a well-labeled museum that manages to display a wide variety of fascinating material in a small space.