HELBI

Last night was the opening of the exhibition “Alexander the Great: Treasures from an Epic Era of Hellenism” at the Onassis Cultural Center in New York. Journalists from the likes of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal as well as Archaeology magazine were afforded a glimpse of the unique exhibits, from various museums and collections, some of which were on public view for the very first time. The curator, Professor Dimitris Pandermalis, told a press conference ahead of the opening that the exhibition includes two rare busts of Alexander from Pella and from the Acropolis as well as finds from Vergina, with jewels from the unlooted grave of the Young Lady of Aigai, an ancient princess of Macedonia. The exhibits show what life was like among the ancient Macedonians, for example the fact that only those who had killed a wild boar without the use of a hunting net could take part in symposia. To gather together such a wide range of exhibits, the Onassis Cultural Center worked closely with the Greek Culture Ministry in order to transport the artifacts from institutions as far apart as the Acropolis Museum, the museums of Vergina, Thessaloniki, Dion and Kilkis, the American Numismatic Society, the Metropolitan, Harvard, Brooklyn, Boston, Princeton and St Louis museums and elsewhere.