★★★★★ 5.0
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National Archaeological Museum
Workers are digging twenty THOUSAND square meters of secret underground galleries beneath your feet right now! This neoclassical beauty on 28is Oktovriou Street was Greece's very FIRST museum after kicking out the Ottoman Empire in 1829. Here's the coolest part - during World War Two, brave museum workers buried over 11,000 ancient treasures in boxes underground to hide them from German soldiers! It's like the world's most epic treasure hunt that actually worked! The building took 19 whole years to finish - that's longer than you've been alive times three! And guess what you're standing in? The Exarcheia district, where this massive neoclassical giant has been protecting Greece's most precious ancient secrets since 1889!
Did You Know?
- The National Archaeological Museum in Athens was originally founded in 1829 on the island of Aegina—Greece’s first capital—before moving to Athens in 1834, and its current grand neoclassical building, designed by Ludwig Lange with later modifications by Ernst Ziller, was finally completed in 1889, reflecting the 19th-century revival of classical Greek aesthetics.
- During World War II, the museum’s priceless antiquities were carefully packed into wooden crates, buried underground, and hidden from potential destruction and looting—a dramatic and lesser-known episode that highlights the museum’s role as a guardian of Greek heritage during times of crisis.
- The museum houses over 11,000 exhibits, including the legendary 'Mask of Agamemnon' from Mycenae, a unique collection of Egyptian and Eastern antiquities (rare for a Greek museum), and treasures from across the Greek world, offering families and children a vivid 'time travel' experience from the Neolithic era to late antiquity.