The Acropolis Museum completes 14 years of successful operation this year. Now headed by the Director General of the Acropolis Museum, Prof. Nikolaos Stambolidis, the Museum not only continues to follow the path paved by its late President, Prof. DimitriosPantermalis, but, as any modern museum should do, it is renewed, enriched, hosts artistic and cultural events, while certainly remaining faithful to its role as a place of scientific documentation, research, conservation and protection of objects.

After an inevitable period of decline in attendance due to the health crisis, the museum seems to be coming back strongly, with an increase of more than 70% in ticket sales in the last year. (July 2021 – June 2022 : 1,051,396 July 2022 – June 2023: 1,716,570).

Among the visitors, the visit of 139,740 school students from Greece and 92,802 school students from abroad stands out. Many of them attended one of the 6 educational programmes offered by the Department of Educational Programmes.

Particular mention should be made of the regular programmes aimed at refugees and migrants, encouraging them to get to know and familiarise themselves with the history and culture of their host country. At the same time, it has expanded its cooperation with the country’s Detention Centres, offering online tours to groups of students from the second-chance schools of the prisons, while it has carried out programmes for special schools, care facilities for the mentally ill and rehabilitation centres for addicts, following requests.

Architectural part with embossed symbols of Athena (Acr. 2444)

In addition, it collaborates with the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors and the instructors of the Shelter Facilities for the design and implementation of the inclusive action for unaccompanied refugee minors on the theme “Arts, crafts and trades in ancient Athens”, which started in May 2023 with a great response.

The Museum’s activities during the last two years include:

• Dance performances in the exhibition spaces in collaboration with the Greek National Opera (Micro Dances Athens, 9-10 October 2021).
• A musical evening for International Women’s Day at the Parthenon Hall on the theme of “The Parthenon’s Goddesses on the Road” and a presentation of the work of ancient poets, with music by Lena Platonos and performance by Maria Farantouri, in collaboration with the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis (8 March 2022).
• Musical events in the courtyard of the Museum with the participation of well-known performers, such as Natasha Bofiliou, as part of the 1st Festival of Worship Music, a collaboration with the Ministry of Culture & Sports and the National Opera (18-20 April 2022).
• Rachmaninoff tribute at the Parthenon Hall, as part of the programme “Chamber Music in Museums”, in collaboration with the Athens State Orchestra (31 March 2023).
• Implementation of a temporary exhibition entitled “Clothes of the Soul”, with 70 iconic works by photographer Vangelis Kyri and embroidery artist Anatoly Georgiyev.

The Museum is a living institution that must constantly evolve. In this context, the re-exhibition has already been completed, mainly in the Hall of the Archaic Acropolis, with the aim of a more rational division of the exhibits into their thematic sections. At the entrance of the renewed hall, visitors are greeted by the two sphinxes of the Acropolis and immediately afterwards by the Muscovy.

The concentration of the archaic architectural sculptures, the Cores and the male statues in distinct sections allows for a better perception of the museum narrative and enhances the visitor’s experience.

The new exhibition section “Officials and Professionals” was also created, enabling visitors to see not only the aesthetic beauty of the statues but also the works of art, the people and societies that produced them, in a new light.

The Museum’s medium-term plans include the creation of a “Museum under the Museum” in which the findings from the excavation of the visitable neighbourhood under the Acropolis Museum will be exhibited.

Also awaiting approval from the KAS is the organization of a major exhibition under the subtitle “Personification and Allegory from antiquity to the present day”. This is a “tetralogy” exhibition which will host 160 art objects from antiquity, the Byzantine period, the Renaissance and modern times. Emblematic works, some of which will be taken out of their host museums for the first time, will be included in the exhibition organised at the Museum.

At the same time, the Museum continues its efforts to return the Parthenon sculptures.  The Museum’s “arsenal” now includes the definitive reunification of the “Fagan fragment” from the A. Salinas Museum in Palermo in the eastern frieze of the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum, as well as the return of the three fragments from the Parthenon’s metopes, frieze and pediments, which were returned by the Vatican Museums. However, the Greek side’s strongest argument is the ever-increasing pressure from global public opinion on the British Museum to return the sculptures to the city that created them.