Athwart Athens: The Return of the Grrl

Finds from the Athens Metro dig

Attention Art-lings: She's ba-a-a-a-ck!

While in Athens, I made it over to the impressive National Archaeological Museum (which I'd previously seen) and the marvelous Museum of Cycladic Art (which I hadn't), not to mention the Acropolis and, of course, the New Acropolis Museum, where I was invited to speak at the the still unopened museum's inaugural event, the Athens International Conference for the Return of Cultural Objects to Their Countries of Origin.

Having written a Wall Street Journal article back in August 1996 about the artifacts being dug up during the excavation for the Athens Metro, I was also fascinated to admire the finds, now attractively arrayed in vitrines at several Metro stations (above). And I was delighted to discover, serendipitously, the Roman baths (below) exposed on a street near my hotel, where the engineers had expected to sink a ventilation shaft for the subway system, only to be archaeologically detoured to another spot down the block.


What Athens found when it tried to dig a ventilation shaft for its Metro system

As you probably already know, something similar happened during excavation for the New Acropolis Museum, and the ingenious solution resulted in enhancing architecture through archaeology. More on this later.

Before launching my Athens posts tomorrow, I must express my grateful admiration for guest blogger Martin Filler, who skillfully wielded the CultureGrrl rapier while I encountered my international fan base (who knew?), some of which I probably alienated by my politically incorrect comments in a forum where "universal museums" were regarded with almost universal scorn. More on that later, too.

Martin, you kept my blog hits up and my blogging compulsion down. Many thanks!

It's now after 4:00 a.m., Athens time, and that's my body's time. So I'm off to dream about the view of ancient ruins from my former hotel room.