New Eyes on Athens — Walking the City for Next Year’s Students
On 13–16 December 2016 Cecily Hennessy and I embarked on a ‘recce’ to Athens, one of my very favourite European cities. Our purpose — to scope out a field trip for the exciting new course Art and Collecting: Antiquity to Renaissance. Why Athens? The city is home to some of the earliest collections and arguably some of the most iconic sites of the ancient world. It makes an ideal immersion for our new students. Their field trip will ultimately cover four days, including an excursion outside Athens to offer variation and a reprieve from the hustle and bustle. Their packed schedule will include multiple museums and archaeological sites, a monastery and numerous churches. As well as the famous landmarks, Athens is home to one of the most important early libraries (belonging to the emperor Hadrian during the second century AD — at its height containing up to 8,000 scrolls of papyri) and notable collections that have been amassed more recently and are not necessarily wildly known, such as the Numismatics Museum in the former residence of seminal archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (tireless in his efforts to locate Homer’s Troy) that showcases all manner of coins and medals from ancient to contemporary mints.
With sun shining on arrival, we begin as we may well for real: on foot with a walking tour. This orientates the students on their first afternoon, whets their appetite and also introduces them to some of the key monuments we will look at in more detail. This instance was no different, encompassing key ancient, Byzantine and even more contemporary buildings — including Syntagma Square and parliament — so frequently in the news in recent months. Without the students, we are able to deviate slightly from our prescribed route, popping into various churches. Not all will make ‘the cut’ for the final schedule — but seeing many first hand is the only means to really ascertain their merits. The walk usually ends as it will with students, convivially. We invariably find ourselves in an opportune area for a drink and chat following an afternoon’s sightseeing.
After our first taste of some of the culinary delights the city has to offer (who can resist a feta salad, moussaka, saganaki to name just a few…), we began early on our second morning with an emphasis on archaeological sites, encompassing the Roman Agora and Forum, Ancient Forum, Kerameikos or ‘potter’s quarter’, Akropolis and South Slope, and finishing with the Akropolis Museum. This might at first glance seem a burgeoning schedule, but the relatively small-scale and walkable nature of Athens, makes it very achievable in one day. Our aim is to work out routes and test terrain at sites for suitability. These visits also provide an opportunity to consider approaches to teaching in smaller museum environments, or select key ‘highlight’ pieces in larger. Highlight pieces are so great in number at the Akropolis Museum, that on reflection, we realise that a split visit including a break will be needed. No great hardship, with the wonderful rooftop restaurant, providing good authentic fare and also a wonderful vista looking up to the Parthenon.
After walking the sites, the next day is museum-centric, with visits to the Goulandris, Benaki and Byzantine museums. However, this run of rich resources seems to overwhelm, so we decide student visits should be split between different days to vary the pace of their experiences. On the final morning we venture outside of the city to Daphni — a wonderful eleventh century monastery, although now somewhat restored. Things had been running too smoothly! We discover that, despite checking the scheduled opening times, Daphni was closed. A quick change of plan saw an impromptu visit to Eleusis, a compact site on the coast — north of Athens’ main port Piraeus — notable as the purported sight for the abduction of Persephone (or Kore in the Greek tradition). The site was in continual use up to and during the Roman period and today benefits from much rebuilding by second century Roman emperors following its sack. Wonderfully deserted at this time of year — a bewildering array of nooks offer potential for exploration and discussion. So often, the most rewarding aspect of visiting objects and artefacts in situ is the opportunity to look at them first hand and really think about their original function, even if inconclusive. We end our recce with a bang — the fabulous National Museum — housing the premier collection of artefacts from ancient Greece. Here students will see fabulous gold, gorgeous wall-paintings and some of the best extant ancient bronzes, alongside superb sculpture and vases. With our last Greek salad eaten — it was sadly time to depart. However, this fabulous location promises to provide a fruitful and diverse trip for future students and will now become a mainstay of the annual itinerary.
Sadie Pickup is a Lecturer in the Antiquity to Renaissance programme at Christie’s Education London. She read Classical Studies and then took her M.A. in Ancient Art from the University of Reading. She has recently completed her D.Phil. in Classical Archaeology at Oxford: Praxiteles’s Knidia: the Statue and its Reception.
Previously she taught at Oxford and Reading and has worked at the Ashmolean Museum where she was involved in the organisation of the recent Herakles to Alexander exhibition in 2011. Her book Brill’s Companion to Aphrodite was published in 2010.
