From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great, Exhibition in North America

A brand new exhibition The Greeks – Agamemnon to Alexander the Great has started at the Montreal Archaeology and History Museum at Pointe-à-Callière, Canada (12 December 2014 – 26 April 2015). From here it will move to the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Canada (5 June 2015 – 12 October 2015), followed by the Field Museum in Chicago, U.S.A. (26 November 2015 – 17 April, 2016) and end at the National Geographic Museum in Washington DC, U.S.A. (till 9 October 2016).

It is clear that this original exhibition spans over 5,000 years of Greek history, from the cradle of Western civilization up to the fascinating era of Alexander the Great. On display are more than five hundred artifacts, collected from twenty-one different Greek museums.

This exhibition is divided into six specific periods to meet famous men who fashioned Greece, like Homer, Leonidas of Sparta, Plato, King Philip II of Macedonia, Aristotle, and, of course, Alexander the Great. Our heritage is still felt in our politics, philosophy, arts, architecture, mathematics, medicine, and sports, and this exhibition just proves it.

Starting as early as 6,000 BC, they quickly move to the legendary players of the Trojan War, with Agamemnon sailing to Troy to recapture beautiful Helen who is residing with Prince Paris. A war that lasted for nearly twelve years involved much more than a girl – even a princess. Attention is given to the early discoveries by Heinrich Schliemann of the treasures of Troy and the Royal Tombs of Mycenae.

The visitor is then taken to the days of Alexander the Great, who succeeded his father, King Philip II of Macedonia at the age of twenty. By conquering most of the world as it was known then, he turned that world into an entirely new one with new ideas and new fashions. His legacy is still being felt today, 2,500 years later.

About twelve centuries separate Agamemnon and Alexander, and in between Greece knew its Golden Age in which Pericles “invented” democracy, a democracy by the people and for the people. During the fifth and fourth centuries BC, Greece and Athens in particular, saw their first great philosophers, while theatre and arts, in general, flourished to an unknown level. The exhibition also makes room for the Olympic Games which were founded in 776 BC and attracted athletes from all over Greece to compete every four years.

Some exceptional pieces have left Greece for the first time and constitute highlights at this exhibition. Among them are gold offerings from the Tombs of Mycenae, including the famous mask attributed to Agamemnon; a typical figurine from the Cycladic island of Amorgos dated to 3,000 BC; a superb Minoan ritual vase from Crete; bronze helmets and gold funerary masks from Boeotia; and, a very illustrative funerary vase from Delos showing how Achilles avenged the death of his friend Patroclus. The scene would not be complete without a statue of Homer and other famous historical figures, a convincing votive relief of Asclepius with his staff around which a snake is coiled (an emblem still used in medicine today), and finally a marvelous gold wreath made of lifelike branches of myrtle, the symbol associated with Aphrodite.

The absolute topper, for me, is Alexander himself! Two statues of this great man have left Pella for the occasion: Alexander represented as Pan and the Head of the Young Alexander. 

[Pictures from the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History]