7/17 - National Museum, Numismatic Museum, Lunch with Chryssanthi

Picture status: back in Athens. No computer yet. Should be here in a few days.

I woke up early and attempted to run up Lykabettos. I wasn't able to run the whole way, but the top was glorious. I’m planning on going back tomorrow morning for the actual sunrise to see the sun come up.

Our first stop this morning was the Hellenistic and Roman section of the sculpture gallery at the National Museum. Dr. Dylan Rogers, the Assistant Director for the school and sculpture expert extraordinaire, walked us through the evolution of art as Greece was split into kingdoms and then eventually ruled by the Romans. Dylan directly engaged us with questions more than normal lecturers, which is a strong pedagogical approach when discussing art, I think. One interesting oddity was the unfinished sphinx sculpture. The rough features are still comprehensible and gave a rare look into the process of sculpting, when so often we see just the finished product.

Needs just a few touchups to be truly finished. 

Another puzzling piece is the repurposed sarcophagus lid in the Roman gallery. The lid shows a reclining woman's body that has had its more obviously feminine features removed with a male head attached. Apparently, what was once a lid for a sarcophagus for two was repurposed at some point for the man who is now buried there. There are a lot of questions to ask about this one.

Everything about the figure just looks a little...off. 

After a decent break where I wandered the galleries and checked out the bronzes and the Antikythera mechanism cursorily, we headed off to the Numismatics Museum, which is in a building that's as much of a curiosity as the coins it houses.

The building is the former home of Heinrich Schliemann, archaeologist extraordinaire and polyglot. Seriously, the dude spoke and wrote ~12 languages. That's nutty. His house is this huge neoclassical building and the inside is lavishly decorated. The floors are mosaic and the paintings and quotations on the walls and ceilings reference his work and interests. Dr. Lee Brice, of Illinois State University, talked to us a little bit about the house and a lot about coins especially what he is working on currently.

Lavish ceiling paintings in the museum. 

Dr. Brice’s current research involves a die study of Corinthian coins. Basically, he is attempting to sort out what order differently marked dies were used in the creation of Corinthian coins in order to have the most accurate possible dating system for the coins of the Corinthian mint. This can also, when coupled with statistical models, tell us the general state of Corinth’s economy when the coins were minted. All in all, super cool project and an excellent lecture.

I wasn't able to stay for long though, as Luke and I had a lunch engagement at the end of the Blue Line on the Metro. We hopped aboard the train at Syntagma and went out to the last stop that non airport trains make and met Dr. Chryssanthi Kousiviti just off the train. Chryssanthi is a lecturer in Modern Greek and Greek Literature at University of Chicago, where I am an undergraduate. I haven't had the schedule space to take her classes, but I am friends with her daughter, who's a classmate of mine at UChicago. When she found out I was in Athens this summer, she very graciously invited me to lunch at her home.

The food was delicious. We had vegetables stuffed with rice, Greek salad, fresh olives, homemade tzatziki and more. Luke and I also met George, one of Chrysaanthi’s students from UChicago who’s working at a pharmacology internship in Greece this summer. As good as the food was, the conversation was even better. We talked about a wide range of topics, from the protests during the early financial crisis, to narratology in Homer, to the development of the modern Greek language. Eventually, we had to take our leave and hopped back on the train to Kolonaki.

The massive spread we ate. Picture taken by Luke Madson

Overall, easy day. And really enjoyable!! Tomorrow is a jam packed day, and there might be another race at the Panathenaic Stadium.

Thanks for reading.

Edited 7/17 to correct a misspelling of Dylan’s last name.