Unseen Museum

07 MARCH 2023 - 08 MAY 2023

“The Secret of the Treasury of Atreus”

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The Treasury of Atreus after the excavations by Lord Elgin (Gell W., The Itinerary of Greece: With a commentary on Pausanias and Strabo and an account of the monuments of antiquity at present existing in that country, London 1810, pl. 5).
Sketch of the façade of the Treasury of Atreus from the excavation journal of Panagiotis Stamatakis, 1878 (Historical Archive of the National Archaeological Museum).
Mycenae 1876: photographic detail with the figure attributed to Panagiotis Stamatakis.
Part of an epistyle of red marble (rosso antico), with relief decoration and later graffiti. From the elaborate façade of the Treasury of Atreus. Ca 1350 BC, inv. no NAM P 1481. (Photographic Archive of the National Archaeological Museum).
Part of an epistyle of red marble (rosso antico), with relief decoration and later graffiti. From the elaborate façade of the Treasury of Atreus. Ca 1350 BC, inv. no NAM P 1481. (Drawing by Yannis Nakas).
Graphic reconstruction of the stone decoration of the façade indicating the suggested position of the fragments of the National Archaeological Museum (study by Maria Kontaki).

The Unseen Museum is the well-known exhibition project of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens that brings to the fore antiquities stored in its vaults away from the visitor’s eyes.

 

In the early spring of 2023 the Unseen Museum presents “The Secret of the Treasury of Atreus”. This is a fragment of the famous monument’s epistyle, decorated with Mycenaean floral motifs in relief and bearing strange engraved graffiti from the 18th century AD. Sir William Gell first located the epistyle in 1805, reporting that he saw it in a little chapel near the village of Mycenae. Panagiotis Stamatakis was the first to notice the engravings on it in January 1878. Stamatakis then retrieved the stone fragment and brought it to Athens, along with the findings of his excavation in the Treasury of Atreus.

According to the graffiti, the epistyle seems to have been collected by a priest in 1758, upon his arrival in the local parish.

 

“The Secret of the Treasury of Atreus” is presented in the heart of the Museum, (“Altar Hall” / Gallery 34), from Tuesday, Mach 7 to Monday, May 8, 2023.

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