Ancient Greece, The British Museum
The Department of Greece and Rome at the British Museum has one of the most comprehensive collections of antiquities from the Classical world, with over 100,000 objects. These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age (about 3200 BC) to the reign of the Roman emperor Constantine in the fourth century AD, with some pagan survivals.
The Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean cultures are represented, and the Greek collection includes important sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens, as well as elements of two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halikarnassos and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos.
The department also houses one of the widest-ranging collections of Italic and Etruscan antiquities and extensive groups of material from Cyprus. The collections of ancient jewellery and bronzes, Greek vases and Roman glass and silver are particularly important.
Ancient Greece
Greece: Cycladic Islands (Room 11)
3200 – 1500 BC
During the early part of the Greek Bronze Age, the people of the Aegean islands known as the Cyclades began to produce items made from copper, silver, lead and the fine white marble of the area. They depended on farming and fishing, but increasingly travelled by boat between the islands and further afield.
Objects on display in Room 11 include marble vessels and the well-known Cycladic stylised figurines. Later decorative fragments from a tomb at Mycenae known as the Treasury of Atreus are located outside the gallery.
Greece: Minoans and Mycenaeans (Room 12)
The Arthur I Fleischman Gallery
3200 – 1100 BC
Minoans (Room 12a)
Minoan Crete was dominated by great palaces, most of which were founded in about 1950 BC. Material from the palace of Knossos is displayed in this gallery, along with pottery, bronzes and stone vases from elsewhere in Crete.
An impressive group of jewellery and treasure on display in Room 12a, believed to have been found on the island of Aigina, demonstrates the craftsmanship of the period.
A bronze sculpture from around 1600 BC represents an acrobat ‘bull-jumping’. This sport may have had links with the legend of the Minotaur: the bull-headed monster slain by the hero Theseus.
Mycenaeans (Room 12b)
The Mycenaean period of the later Greek Bronze Age was viewed by the Greeks as the ‘age of heroes’ and perhaps provides the historical background to many of the stories told in later Greek mythology, including Homer’s epics. Objects and artworks from this time are found throughout mainland Greece and the Greek islands. Distinctive Mycenaean pottery was distributed widely across the eastern Mediterranean.
Following the collapse of this civilisation in the twelfth century BC, Greece entered a ‘Dark Age’ of relative poverty and isolation.
The displays in Room 12b include a fine example of a krater (mixing bowl) and a number of bronzes from the later Geometric period. These show the beginnings of Greek mythology being used to decorate works of art. They come from about the same time that the epics of Homer were reaching the form in which we inherit them, as the earliest Greek literature.
Greece: Minoans and Mycenaeans (Room 12)
The Arthur I Fleischman Gallery
3200 – 1100 BC
Minoans (Room 12a)
Minoan Crete was dominated by great palaces, most of which were founded in about 1950 BC. Material from the palace of Knossos is displayed in this gallery, along with pottery, bronzes and stone vases from elsewhere in Crete.
An impressive group of jewellery and treasure on display in Room 12a, believed to have been found on the island of Aigina, demonstrates the craftsmanship of the period.
A bronze sculpture from around 1600 BC represents an acrobat ‘bull-jumping’. This sport may have had links with the legend of the Minotaur: the bull-headed monster slain by the hero Theseus.
Mycenaeans (Room 12b)
The Mycenaean period of the later Greek Bronze Age was viewed by the Greeks as the ‘age of heroes’ and perhaps provides the historical background to many of the stories told in later Greek mythology, including Homer’s epics. Objects and artworks from this time are found throughout mainland Greece and the Greek islands. Distinctive Mycenaean pottery was distributed widely across the eastern Mediterranean.
Following the collapse of this civilisation in the twelfth century BC, Greece entered a ‘Dark Age’ of relative poverty and isolation.
The displays in Room 12b include a fine example of a krater (mixing bowl) and a number of bronzes from the later Geometric period. These show the beginnings of Greek mythology being used to decorate works of art. They come from about the same time that the epics of Homer were reaching the form in which we inherit them, as the earliest Greek literature.
Greece 1050–520 BC (Room 13)
Following the collapse of Mycenaean palace society and a period of relative poverty and isolation, Greece experienced a cultural and political renaissance. From the eighth century BC onwards, renewed contact with the Near East, Anatolia, Phoenicia, Egypt, and other peoples around the Mediterranean had a profound impact on Greek culture.
The linear Geometric style of pottery gave way to ‘orientalising’ motifs, such as animals and florals. A Greek script based on the Phoenician alphabet was developed, Homer composed his epic poems and a new political unit, the city-state (polis), emerged.
Competition between these states often resulted in wars but also in athletic and musical contests such as the Olympic Games.
Objects on display in Room 13 include sculpture, painted pottery, jewellery, coins and other artefacts from Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and East Greece.
Greek vases (Room 14)
530 – 500 BC
Andokides, whose signed vase is displayed in this room, was the leader of an innovative group of potters and painters working in Athens in the late sixth century BC.
At this time, a number of new ideas were introduced the decoration of pottery. Most important was the red-figure technique, which featured figures reserved in red against a black background.
The objects on display in Room 14 include Athenian pottery depicting hunting, dancing and mythology.
Greece: Athens and Lycia (Room 15)
520 – 430 BC
Following the defeat of the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 – 479 BC, democratic Athens built up a powerful maritime empire. In an age of prosperity Athenian artists flourished, and Athens’ distinctive painted pottery was exported all over the Mediterranean world.
In Room 15, pottery is shown alongside other objects to illustrate such themes as democracy, the human body, the Athenian Empire and the people of Athens. Among those pressed into joining Athens’ tribute-paying were the Lycians – so-called allies of the empire living in what is now south-west Turkey.
Sculpture in this gallery comes from tombs and shrines built on the acropolis of Lycian Xanthos.
Greece: Bassai sculptures (Room 16)
420 – 400 BC
Access to the gallery outside of these hours may be arranged by prior appointment with the Department of Greece and Rome. Please email greekandroman@britishmuseum.org Please note that this service is only available from Monday – Friday as the department is not staffed on the weekend.
The Temple of Apollo Epikourios (‘Apollo the Helper’) was built high on a rocky ridge of Mount Kotylion at Bassae in south-west Arcadia, a region of the Greek Peloponnese. The Greek historian Pausanias wrote, in the second century AD, that the name ‘Helper’ was given to Apollo by citizens of nearby Phigaleia, as thanks for their deliverance from the plague of 429-427 BC. He also wrote that the temple was designed by Iktinos, one of the architects of the Parthenon.
The twenty three blocks of the frieze that ran around the interior of the building show the battle between the Greeks and Amazons and the Lapiths and Centaurs.
This frieze is displayed on the upper level of Room 16. The remains of some of the twelve sculptured metopes that decorated the Doric frieze of the north and south porches can be seen on the lower level.
Nereid Monument (Room 17)
390 – 380 BC
The Nereid Monument takes its name from the Nereids, sea-nymphs whose statues were placed between the columns of this monumental tomb. It was built for Erbinna (Greek Arbinas), ruler of Lycian Xanthos, south-west Turkey. Although he was not Greek, Erbinna chose to be buried in a tomb that resembles a Greek temple of the Ionic order.
The monument is much influenced by the Ionic temples of the Acropolis of Athens and its lavish decorative sculpture, which can be seen reconstructed and displayed around the walls of Room 17, is a mixture of Greek and Lycian style and iconography.
Greece: Parthenon (Room 18)
447 – 432 BC
The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme on the Acropolis of Athens.
The temple’s great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the city’s power and wealth at the height of its empire. Room 18 exhibits sculptures that once decorated the outside of the building.
The pediments and metopes illustrate episodes from Greek mythology, while the frieze represents the people of contemporary Athens in religious procession.
Rooms 18a and 18b feature fragments of the Parthenon sculpture and also pieces of architecture. Video displays using computer graphics explain how the sculptures were placed on the building, and a touch tour for visually impaired visitors includes a model, some original architecture and plaster casts of the frieze.
Greece: Athens (Room 19)
430 – 400 BC
Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday 10.00-17.30
When the Parthenon was completed in 432 BC, Athens had already embarked on the disastrous ‘Peloponnesian War’ against Sparta. Final defeat in 404 BC brought about the end of Athens’ golden age and stripped the city of its empire, defences and – for a time at least – its democratic government. The building programme on the Athenian Acropolis was interrupted by the war.
The temple of Athena Nike and the Erechtheum were two buildings that suffered delays and both are represented by sculpture and architecture in Room 19.
Marble grave-markers and smaller objects explore the themes of war and death, and war and escapism.
Greeks and Lycians 400–325 BC (Room 20)
Following the defeat of Athens and the collapse of its empire in 404 BC, a power struggle on both sides of the Aegean Sea followed. In the Greek mainland the once independent city states fell under the rising power of Macedon. On the other side of the Aegean, Persia reasserted its imperial power over the East-Greek cities.
Objects on display in Room 20 illustrate the rise in private luxury that accompanied political and social change in the fourth century BC. This includes gold jewellery, exquisite metalwork showing the influence of Persian art, and a focus on novel representation of the human body.
A tomb from Lycian Xanthos built in around 360 BC for Payava, the Persian-appointed governor of the city, dominates the centre of the gallery.
Mausoleum of Halikarnassos (Room 21)
Around 350 BC
The Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (modern Bodrum) was a large and elaborate tomb built for king Maussollos of Karia, south west Turkey. Although built on a much grander scale, the Mausoleum took inspiration for its design from the Nereid Monument of Lycian Xanthos. Listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it gave its name to all subsequent monumental tombs.
Standing on a tall podium, the building was up to 40 metres in height and was decorated with a large amount of sculpture, carved both in the round and in relief. The sculptural themes explored life in the court of the Karian king and his hopes for the afterlife.
Colossal free-standing statues and marble relief slabs from the Mausoleum can be seen in Room 21, as well as fragments of the huge marble, four-horse chariot that crowned the pyramid roof.
The world of Alexander (Room 22)
About 323 – 31 BC
The Hellenistic period dates from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC to the defeat of Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony at Actium in 31 BC. After his death, Alexander’s empire was divided up into kingdoms, ruled by his generals. The major dynasties supported major architectural programmes and were great patrons of the arts and culture.
Objects on display in Room 22 include a colossal carved column drum from the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), the Demeter from Knidos, south west Turkey and Greek bronzes.
Displays of smaller objects show the skill of ancient goldsmiths, metalworkers, potters and coroplasts (makers of clay or terracotta figurines) and gem cutters.
Greek and Roman sculpture (Room 23)
1st century BC – 2nd century AD
Rome’s conquest of Greece by the first century BC, subjected Roman artistic taste to the influence of Greek style. Many of the sculptures on display in Room 23 are Roman versions of Greek originals.
Roman copies often provide useful information on the appearance of ancient bronze sculptures that no longer exist.
One such marble statue on display in Room 23 may have been inspired by the famous lost Greek bronze of a ‘diadoumenos’ (athlete binding a victory ribbon around his head), originally created by the sculptor Polykleitos in the fifth century BC.
Department of Greece and Rome
The British Museum has one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of antiquities from the Classical world, with over 100,000 objects. These mostly range in date from the beginning of the Greek Bronze Age (about 3200 BC) to the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, with the Edict of Milan under the reign of the Roman Emperor Constantine I in 313 AD. Archaeology was in its infancy during the nineteenth century and many pioneering individuals began excavating sites across the Classical world, chief among them for the museum were Charles Newton, John Turtle Wood, Robert Murdoch Smith and Charles Fellows.
The Greek objects originate from across the Ancient Greek world, from the mainland of Greece and the Aegean Islands, to neighbouring lands in Asia Minor and Egypt in the eastern Mediterranean and as far as the western lands of Magna Graecia that include Sicily and southern Italy. The Cycladic, Minoan and Mycenaean cultures are represented, and the Greek collection includes important sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens, as well as elements of two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus and the Temple of Artemis at Ephesos.
Beginning from the early Bronze Age, the department also houses one of the widest-ranging collections of Italic and Etruscan antiquities outside Italy, as well as extensive groups of material from Cyprus and non-Greek colonies in Lycia and Caria on Asia Minor. There is some material from the Roman Republic, but the collection’s strength is in its comprehensive array of objects from across the Roman Empire, with the exception of Britain (which is the mainstay of the Department of Prehistory and Europe).
The collections of ancient jewellery and bronzes, Greek vases (many from graves in southern Italy that were once part of Sir William Hamilton’s and Chevalier Durand’s collections), Roman glass including the famous Cameo glass Portland Vase, Roman mosaics from Carthage and Utica in North Africa that were excavated by Nathan Davis, and silver hoards from Roman Gaul (some of which were bequeathed by the philanthropist and museum trustee Richard Payne Knight), are particularly important. Cypriot antiquities are strong too and have benefited from the purchase of Sir Robert Hamilton Lang’s collection as well as the bequest of Emma Turner in 1892, which funded many excavations on the island. Roman sculptures (many of which are copies of Greek originals) are particularly well represented by the Townley collection as well as residual sculptures from the famous Farnese collection.
Objects from the Department of Greece and Rome are located throughout the museum, although many of the architectural monuments are to be found on the ground floor, with connecting galleries from Gallery 5 to Gallery 23. On the upper floor, there are galleries devoted to smaller material from ancient Italy, Greece, Cyprus and the Roman Empire.
Key highlights of the collections include:
Parthenon
The Parthenon Marbles (Elgin Marbles), (447–438 BC)
Erechtheion
A surviving column, (420–415 BC)
One of six remaining Caryatids, (415 BC)
Temple of Athena Nike
Surviving frieze slabs, (427–424 BC)
Temple of Bassae
Twenty-three surviving blocks of the frieze from the interior of the temple, (420–400 BC)
Mausoleum at Halicarnassus
Two colossal free-standing figures identified as Maussollos and his wife Artemisia, (c. 350 BC)
Part of an impressive horse from the chariot group adorning the summit of the Mausoleum, (c. 350 BC)
The Amazonomachy frieze – A long section of relief frieze showing the battle between Greeks and Amazons, (c. 350 BC)
Temple of Artemis in Ephesus
One of the sculptured column bases, (340–320 BC)
Part of the Ionic frieze situated above the colonnade, (330–300 BC)
Knidos in Asia Minor
Demeter of Knidos, (350 BC)
Lion of Knidos, (350–200 BC)
Xanthos in Asia Minor
Lion Tomb, (550–500 BC)
Harpy Tomb, (480–470 BC)
Nereid Monument, partial reconstruction of a large and elaborate Lykian tomb, (390–380 BC)
Tomb of Merehi, (390–350 BC)
Tomb of Payava, (375–350 BC)
Wider collection
Prehistoric Greece and Italy (3300 BC – 8th century BC)
Over thirty Cycladic figures from islands in the Aegean Sea, many collected by James Theodore Bent, Greece, (3300–2000 BC)
Material from the Palace of Knossos including a huge pottery storage jar, some donated by Sir Arthur Evans, Crete, Greece, (1900–1100 BC)
The Minoan gold treasure from Aegina, northern Aegean, Greece, (1850–1550 BC)
Segments of the columns and architraves from the Treasury of Atreus, Peloponnese, Greece, (1350–1250 BC)
Elgin Amphora, highly decorated pottery vase attributed to the Dipylon Master, Athens, Greece, (8th century BC)
Bronze Statuette of Athletic Spartan Girl
Etruscan (8th century BC – 1st century BC)
Some of the artefacts from the Castellani Tomb in Palestrina, central Italy, (8th–6th century BC)
Contents of the Isis Tomb, Vulci, (570–560 BC)
Painted terracotta plaques (the so-called Boccanera Plaques) from a tomb in Cerveteri, (560–550 BC)
Oscan Tablet, one of the most important inscriptions in the Oscan language, (300–100 BC)
Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa from Chiusi, (150–140 BC)
Ancient Greece (8th century BC – 4th century AD)
Group of life-size archaic statues from the Sacred Way at Didyma, western Turkey, (600–580 BC)
Dedicatory Inscription by Alexander the Great from Priene in Turkey (330 BC)
Head from the colossal statue of the Asclepius of Milos, Greece, (325–300 BC)
Bronze sculpture of a Greek poet known as the Arundel Head, western Turkey, (2nd–1st centuries BC)
Remains of the Scylla monument at Bargylia, south west Anatolia, Turkey, (200–150 BC)
Ancient Rome (1st century BC – 4th century AD)
Cameo glass Portland Vase, the most famous glass vessel from ancient Rome, (1–25 AD)
Silver Warren Cup with homoerotic scenes, found near Jerusalem, (5–15 AD)
Discus-thrower (Discobolos)[67] and Bronze Head of Hypnos from Civitella d’Arna, Italy, (1st–2nd centuries AD)
Capitals from some of the pilasters of the Pantheon, Rome, (126 AD)
Jennings Dog, a statue of a Molossian guard dog, central Italy, (2nd century AD)
British Museum, London, United Kingdom
The British Museum, located in the Bloomsbury area of London, United Kingdom, is a public institution dedicated to human history, art and culture. Its permanent collection numbers some 8 million works, and is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence having been widely sourced during the era of the British Empire, and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present. It’s the first national public museum in the world.
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of expanding British colonisation and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum of Natural History in South Kensington in 1881 (it is nowadays simply called the Natural History Museum).
In 1973, the British Library Act 1972 detached the library department from the British Museum, but it continued to host the now separated British Library in the same Reading Room and building as the museum until 1997. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the United Kingdom it charges no admission fee, except for loan exhibitions.
In 2013 the museum received a record 6.7 million visitors, an increase of 20% from the previous year. Popular exhibitions including “Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum” and “Ice Age Art” are credited with helping fuel the increase in visitors. Plans were announced in September 2014 to recreate the entire building along with all exhibits in the video game Minecraft in conjunction with members of the public.