Ancient Greece at the British Museum

Black-figured amphora with frieze of dancing satyrs and maenads. Athens, 540-510 BC.

Stuck in London for almost three days – it is fortunate that the Eurostar terminal is not located in Reading - I decided would do some tourism. Very conveniently the British Museum had placed itself within walking distance of St Pancras Station.

Taking the tube costs four pounds, and you have to pay to enter a famous cathedral, but in London, all public museums are free. Like, free. The British Museum even offers various workshops and discovery tours of sections of the Museums for free, every day at fixed hours. Apparently you can also borrow art materials to make sketches for a small caution.

Terracotta female figurine with bird-like face and pierced ears.

Cyprus, 1450-1200 BC. Tomb 93, Enkomi.

Pottery crater with bull and egret. Mycenaean 1300-1200 BC, Cyprus.

Given the sheer vastness of the place, in two days I was only able to scratch the surface of the Greek collection (in a manner of speaking), and visit the following rooms:

11Greece: Cycladic Islands

12a Greece: Minoans

12b Greece: Mycenaeans

13 Greece 1050-520 BC

14 Greek vases

15 Athens and Lycia

17 Nereid Monument.

Jug with sprout in the form of a griffin’s head.

Cyclades, 675-650 BC.

Terracotta scent bottle in the form of a squatting man, perhaps a comic actor.
Corinthian, 600-575 BC, Rhodes.

Bronze figure of a running satyr. Greek, 6th century BC.

Vase. Athena with a symbol of naval victory. 5th century BC.

 Nereid Monument 390 – 380 BC

Vase. Rhapsode. Athens, 490-480 BC, Kleophrades. “Once upon a time in Tyrias”