150 exhibits at Sparta museum
If you’re in Sparta anytime between late July and September, for work or vacation, make sure you find time to visit the exhibition on Athens and Sparta from the 8th to the 5th century BC at the Olive and Olive Oil Museum. The exhibition is a joint initiative by the Piraeus Group Culture Foundation, the National Archaeological Museum and the Fifth Ephorate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities. The 150 exhibits depict moments in the political, cultural and economic history of the two leading city-states in ancient Greece from the 8th to the 5th centuries BC. The purpose of the exhibition is not only to highlight those aspects but also to focus on their similarities and differences, seen within the context of the constantly changing dynamic in their relationship, with brief stopovers at the Persian Wars (492-479 BC), and the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). The opening at the Olive and Olive Oil Museum coincides with the opening of the museum’s new multipurpose room. The first room presents Athens and Sparta at the time of the Persian Wars through vases, sculpture and craftwork that reflect the social and economic developments that took place in the two city-states from the late Geometric age to the Archaic age (8th-7th century BC). Here can be seen the bone figurines from the temple of Artemis Orthia in Sparta, the statue of a kore from an Attic workshop and the Laconian commemorative relief of the Dioskouroi.
