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Virtue & Power

Museum

Acropolis Museum

Built at the foot of the rock to hold what came off it, and designed with a gallery whose empty spaces are an argument.

Athens, Greece · founded 2009 in its present building

Scope

Material from the Acropolis and its slopes.

History of the collection

Opened in 2009, replacing a small museum on the rock itself. It is built over an excavated urban area of ancient Athens, visible through the floor.

The top-floor Parthenon gallery is oriented to the building itself and displays the surviving frieze at its original spacing, with plaster casts marking the blocks in London.

Collection notes

The archaic sculpture from the Persian destruction deposit is the most important body of pre-classical Greek sculpture anywhere. It survives because the Athenians buried the damaged dedications when they rebuilt after 480 BCE, which seals everything above as later.

Contested holdings

Recorded because a collection description that omits a live claim is not describing the collection. The platform states the dispute and does not adjudicate it.

  • The Parthenon sculptures held in London

    Claimed by: Greece seeks their return from the British Museum

    The museum's Parthenon gallery is designed to display the whole programme, with casts standing in for the blocks in London. The building is itself a statement in the dispute, which the platform records without adjudicating.