Naxos Archaeological Museum

Saturday.
Naxos archaeological museum
Some lighting on; some lighting switched on and off before and after us as we moved around the museum. I wondered if the darkness at the lost property office at the airport was because the chaps were snoozing, or because of economies.

I haven’t seen any sun since I’ve been in Greece (I am writing this on a Monday morning; the last time I saw the sun was sunset near Heathrow last Thursday]. But in Naxos museum I noticed the different lighting conditions, and the difference a change in lighting made to a stone carving of a face. Fully lit, the face would have been far less impressive. Perhaps it was a movement of the cloud, but the appearance of this face visibily changed whilst I was at the museum.

I thought back over the years since I first saw the "old friends" in the museum. I first was on a boat that called at Naxos in 1981. I first landed on Naxos in 1985, the year I first went to Amorgos.
　
Above all I think of the lives of the people who made these things, these exhibits in the museum. Could they have imagined that 4000, 5000 years later their artefacts would be exhibited in a museum? And what of all the similar items that have not survived, and the people who created them. If I pondered too far down this route I would soon get very philosophical.
The acorn shaped glass.
The cat head on a gold ring.
The pearl-like sheen on old glass.
Plank chested figures [chest, bot breast]
Red clay animal – a frog
A shiny red human figurre, with a Samian type glaze.
A fragment of pottery showing a horse’s head. Other poterry in similar colours and appears to be from the same piece of pot. One fragment has this lettering
ΑΦΣΕΜ [the last letter only partially survived, but did look like an M.]
Melon shaped vase
Large lion’s head.
Bust of large male figure. Small lady (no head, arms or legs) on his hand. She was smnaller than thre cahp’s hand. I wondered at the symbolism of this statue.
Violin shaped figures.
Some black clay pots
And of course the Cycladic figures.
And a pottery pig.
So many more notes and not yet listed.
I think over what has happened in my life since my first rites of passage in this museum.