The best tips for visiting the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece, are to buy skip-the-line tickets online and visit early in the morning. Time-slot reservation entry tickets are essential.
The Archaeology Museum in Athens is the largest in Greece and requires several hours just to see the highlights. On a first visit, it is sensible to focus on the major works – no one can see this whole museum in a day.
The highlights of the National Archaeology Museum in Athens include:
- the Mycenaean gold collection and Cycladic figures,
- the exhibition of a thousand sculptures, and
- the vast collection of vases.
Guided tours of the highlights take around two hours but many visitors will spend much longer in the museum.
Work on the modernization and expansion of the museum will continue for several years. Expect some rooms to close on any given day, whether for renovation, changes, cleaning, “technical reasons” or simply a lack of personnel.
Collections of the Museum
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens is the largest museum in Greece and the world’s most important collection of artworks from the ancient Greek civilizations. It covers the period from prehistory to late antiquity, roughly 7000 BC to AD500. The over 11,000 artifacts are mostly from (present-day) Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Turkey, and Egypt.
The artworks in the National Archaeological Museum are usually grouped into three major collections:
- Collections of Prehistoric, Egyptian, Cypriot, and Near Eastern Antiquities
- Collection of Sculptures
- Collections of Vases, Metalwork, and Minor Arts
Most of the museum’s exhibition rooms are on the ground floor but the vast collection of vases and pottery is on the smaller upper level.
Photography is allowed but staging dramatic poses with the sculptures is forbidden.
Collections of Prehistoric and Early Antiquities
The museum’s oldest items are in the collections of Prehistoric (Rooms 3-6, 48), Egyptian (Room 40-41), Cypriot, and Near Eastern Antiquities (Room 64).
For most visitors, the most interesting items in these collections are:
- Mycenaean Collection (Room 4) — highlights here include Schliemann’s Golden Mask of Agamemnon, other golden items, jewelry, weapons, and funerary adornments.
- Cycladic Antiquities (Room 6) — a large collection of Cycladic figurines.
These two rooms are often bottlenecks — see them first if visiting early morning. Room 4 is one of the first halls in the museum, so it gets crowded easily. Items are often small and displayed behind glass, making it hard to study or read the descriptions when many visitors crowd around them. (The detailing of especially the golden items warrants a thorough, close-up study.) Room 6 is narrow and often a dead-end, so it gets fuller than it should.
→ Also visit the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens for an impressive display of figurines.
Collection of Sculptures
The National Archaeological Museum exhibits the world’s largest collection of ancient Greek monumental sculptures from around 750 BC to AD 400. Around a thousand sculptures are on display to fill most of the museum’s ground floor halls (Rooms 7 to 34).
The sculpture displays are mostly chronological:
- Archaic Period (750-480 BC) — especially famous for the collections of Koria (clothed female statues) and Kouroi (naked male youths).
- Classical Period (480-323 BC) — the human body in idealized beauty.
- Hellenistic Period (323-31 BC) — more realistic portrayals.
- Roman Period (31 BC to AD330) — many Roman copies of Hellenistic originals but also new works, including busts and sarcophagi.
Additionally, there are also some exquisite statuettes and figurines in the collection of metalwork in the smaller rooms 36 to 39.
The sculptures are mostly large and easy to enjoy, even if crowds ruin the photos. The major works are in the larger halls on the main route through the museum — the smaller side rooms are sometimes closed.
However, make a specific effort to see the Varvakeion Athena — this statuette is considered the truest likeness of the 12x larger and now lost Athena Parhenos by Pheidias that was in the Parthenon on the Acropolis. This Athena is somewhat hidden in the blind corner of the L-shaped Rooms 19 / 20, off the main route accessible from a side door in Room 17. (Helpfully, a set of stairs to the outdoor atrium, courtyard cafe, and toilets go down from Room 19).
Some of the most impressive sculptures in the museum are large bronzes that survived due to being shipwrecked in antiquity and only being rediscovered and recovered in the modern era. Two of the works in this group include Zeus (or Poseidon?) and The Jockey from Artemision.
→ For a more detailed description of the statues, see also Top Archaic Sculptures (Korai and Kouroi sculptures), Large Greek Bronze Sculptures, and Top Sculptures from the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods.
Collections of Vases, Metalwork, and Minor Arts
The vast collections of Vases, Metalwork, and Minor Arts are mostly displayed on the upper floor of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. These items are generally far smaller than the sculptures and warrant closer scrutiny to appreciate the decorations rather than a simple walk-through. If time is limited, it may be sensible to concentrate on a few works rather than rambling aimlessly through the halls just to tick off the room numbers.
The Collection of Vases uses most of the exhibition space on the upper floor. It is the world’s most important and largest collection of vases from Greek antiquity. The exhibits are mostly chronological from 1100 to 31 BC. Many items are from excavated cemeteries and thus have white backgrounds.
The other collections here are also extensive, but the smaller items fill only a couple of rooms. These include terracotta figurines, gold jewelry and silver vessels, and glass vessels from around 900 BC to ca. AD 500.
The Collection of Metalwork is one of the largest in the world and includes items from 1100 BC to AD 500. Many of the bronze figurines are particularly impressive and are exhibited in galleries on the ground floor.
Visitor Information for the Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece
Time-slot reservation tickets are essential to visit the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. Fortunately, opening hours are long.
Keep tickets at hand — tickets are sometimes checked when moving to different parts of the museum and when re-entering from the cafe (and toilets) in the basement.
Opening Hours of the Archaeological Museum in Athens
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens is open daily but with shorter hours on Tuesdays and in the winter months.
The opening hours of the archaeology museum are as follows:
November to March:
- Tuesday: 13:00 to 20:00
- Wednesday to Monday: 8:30 to 15:30
April to October:
- Tuesday: 13:00 to 20:00
- Wednesday to Monday: 8:00 to 20:00
The National Archaeological Museum in Athens is closed on the following holidays:
- 25 & 26 December, 1 January, 25 March, 1 May, and Orthodox Easter Sunday.
The best times to visit are generally first thing in the morning, right at opening time, or in the early evening during the summer season. The museum is busiest in the mid-morning and early afternoon, on Tuesdays, on weekends, and during school or public holidays.
The best months to visit the National Archaeological Museum (and Athens for that matter) to avoid crowds are mid-January to mid-February, March (before Easter), and November.
Tickets for the National Archaeological Museum in Athens
Entry tickets for the National Archaeological Museum in Athens are a very reasonable €12 in summer and a cheap €6 during the winter months. (The far smaller Acropolis Museum charges €20 in summer / €10 in winter.)
Time-slot reservations are essential. The official reseller Hellenic Heritage (hh) is a bit fickle, especially when trying to buy tickets across the seasons’ changeover dates. Tickets are also available (usually with an audioguide) from GetYourGuide and Tiqets.
Guided tours of the Archaeological Museum are far less common than for example the Acropolis Museum and usually last around two hours.
The National Archaeological Museum is not included in the 5-Day Combination ticket or any other official combination tickets. However, many resellers offer deals when buying museum tickets and other admission tickets in the same transaction, e.g. with the Acropolis Museum or 5-Day Combined Tickets (Acropolis and 6 sites).
Admission to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens is free to EU youths under 25 and all children under 5 years old.
Admission is free for all on the first Sunday of the winter season months. Entry is also free on 6 March, 18 April, 18 May, the final weekend of September, and 28 October.
Transportation to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens
The National Archaeological Museum (NAM), 28is Oktovriou 44 (or Patision St), Athina 106 82, Greece, is in a purpose-built museum building to the north of the center of Athens.
The National Archaeological Museum of Greece is the only major tourist sight in Athens that is not within easy walking distance from the tourist heartland around Plaka, Monastiraki, the Acropolis, and Syntagma Square. Walking from Syntagma would take about half an hour but it is not the most pleasant walk. Save your legs for the museum visit.
The closest metro station is Omonia (M1 green or M2 red). From here, it is a 10-minute walk to the museum. Several buses stop nearby but routes are not easy to work out. On a hot day, a taxi may be a sound investment.
More on Visiting Athens
- Acropolis & Parthenon:
- Acropolis Museum
- National Archaeological Museum of Athens:
- Ancient Agora — Archaeological Site and Museum
- 5-Day Combination Tickets — Worth it?
- Visit the Museum of Cycladic Art
- Cheap Public Transportation to Athens Airport — Bus X95 is cheapest, Metro M3 is fastest.
- Odysseus — the official website of the Ministry of Culture and Sports has better information than the very old-fashioned design.
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