The Museum Kits are the most composite paedagogic material we provide. They contain a diversity of relevantly designed materials that can be activated through the personal way of each teacher. Each one contains books, transparencies, games, models of monuments and copies of ancient objects. In their entirety they provide a specially designed educational resource of alternative teaching for use either in the classroom or in some other place of cultural reference. The old-fashioned idea of a closed box full of gifts for the child to open is associated with modern technologies. Books, photographs, Cd-Roms and artifacts complement each other to provide learning and fun.
The Department’s Museum Kits, while thematically independent, can form an assemblage through which the culture of ancient Greece can be approached in a new way. Brought to life in vivid relief before the eyes of the pupils is the picture of a brilliant ancient Sanctuary (Museum Kit “Let’s Go to the Acropolis”), where the gods were worshipped (Museum Kit “The Twelve Olympian Gods”), in splendid temples (Museum Kit “A Greek Temple”), built of marble (Museum Kit “The Art of Stone Sculpture”), decorated with sculptures of unique artistic quality (Museum Kit “The Parthenon Frieze”). Worshippers dressed in beautiful clothes participate in the festivals (Museum Kit “Ancient Greek Dress”), with music everywhere apparent (Museum Kit “Ancient Greek Musical Instruments”). The children’s approach to the world of antiquity is thus both pleasing and constructive. Concurrently, they learn about contemporary scholarly research and the great technical work being carried out today on the Acropolis (Museum Kit , “Acropolis and Restoration”).
Procedure for borrowing the museum kits:
The Museum Kits may be taken out on loan for three weeks, on agreement by telephone (210-9239186). The material is picked up and returned to the Centre for the Acropolis Studies by the educator on the agreed day between 9:00 and 14:30. For receipt of the material a formal application must be made, signed by the director of the school and accompanied by a photocopy of the educator’s identity card. The Museum Kits are lent to approximately 200 schools per year and are used by some 12,000 pupils.
Let’s Go to the Acropolis
The purpose of the Museum Kit “Let’s Go to the Acropolis” is to help the pupil make a tour of the Acropolis and to imagine the brilliant sanctuary where the Athenians worshipped their patron goddess.
The Kit contains a model of the Acropolis Rock and the buildings of the Sanctuary at a scale of 1 : 800, the educational booklets “Let’s Go to the Acropolis”, “Let’s Go to the Acropolis Peripatos” and four posters showing the development of the Sacred Rock from prehistoric times to today. The pupil positions the buildings on the Rock, compares them, studies their measurements, their proportions, the function of each building and its orientation and precise location on the Rock.
The following booklets are also included in the Kit.
The Athenian Acropolis in the 4th Millenium B.C. (poster)
The Athenian Acropolis in 480 B.C. (poster)
The Athenian Acropolis through the 2nd century A.D. (poster)
The Athenian Acropolis today (poster)
Let’s Go to the Acropolis (Booklet for the Educator)
Let’s Go to the Acropolis (Booklet for the Pupil)
Let’s Go to the Acropolis Peripatos (Booklet for the Educator)
Let’s Go to the Acropolis Peripatos (Booklet for the Pupil)
A Day on the Acropolis with the Texts of Plutarch and Pausanias
A Day on the Acropolis in Search of the Goddess Athena
A Greek Temple
Greece today is a land full of monuments with the forms of classical architecture. Every city has buildings in which we can recognize the same features of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders.
The Museum Kit “A Greek Temple” helps both educator and pupil to study and understand temple architecture in a pleasant and creative way. It contains a model of the Parthenon at a scale of 1 : 800, three columns (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) and 16 rubber stamps with which the pupils can compose the three orders.
With the assistance of a book describing the ancient temples, their use and function, their form, their sculptural and painted decoration and their construction, the pupils can study both ancient and neoclassical buildings. The book is accompanied by drawings and photographs of the best known temples preserved in good condition throughout Greece.
Included is the book:A Greek Temple
The Art of Stone Sculpture
The Acropolis today presents a similar picture as in antiquity when the monuments were being built. The sound most frequently heard by the visitor today and then is that of tools chiseling marble. The Museum Kit contains a piece of marble that has traces of tools that were used by ancient and contemporary Greek stonemassons. Included also are hammers and a series of tools corresponding to the tool marks on the marble. The teacher’s pack comprises texts, drawings, films, photographs of ancient quarries and posters showing the different kinds of marble found in Greece.
The purpose of the Kit is to give the pupils a chance to carve stone and marble so that they can understand the problems of the materials. They can also observe the traces left by the various tools and recognize them on the surfaces of ancient and modern buildings and sculpture.
Included are the books:
M. Korres, “From Mt. Pentelikon to the Parthenon”
S. Mavrommatis, “Photographs from the Works on the Athenian Acropolis”
Acropolis and Restoration
The museum kit "Acropolis and Restoration" is prepared for educators and for pupils, particularly of the Secondary level, who declare special interest in the works of restoration being carried out at present on the Acropolis, and are interested in the problems of the monuments and the reasons that have led to their restoration. It contains ten educational triptychs that are divided into two groups as well as the film "The Works on the Athenian Acropolis":
In the first group of triptychs, theoretical subjects are presented that are associated in a general way with the restoration of ancient monuments, particularly those of the Acropolis: 1) The Types of Restorations, 2) The Problems of the Monuments and the Reasons for the Intervention, 3) The Principles of the Works of Restoration on the Acropolis, 4) The Method of the Interventions on the Acropolis Monuments.
Presented analytically in the second group are the restoration programmes that are carried out on each individual monument under the titles: Parthenon, Propylaia, Erechtheion, Temple of Athena Nike, The Rock, the Walls and the Environment. It can be combined with the online application The Glafka Project.
A special pamphlet is dedicated to proposals for the educators.
The Parthenon Frieze
The Parthenon Frieze is a continuous band of figures in relief that ran around the upper part of the main temple building, inside the outer colonnade. Its theme was the procession to the Acropolis that took place during the Great Panathenaia, the festival held in honour of the goddess Athena. The Frieze is 160 m. in length and about 1 m. in height. Some 378 human and divine figures are depicted and more than 200 animals, for the most part horses.
The Museum Kit contains a small model of the Parthenon, moulds for the 16 blocks of the west Frieze at a scale of 1:20, a mould of the head of the goddess Iris at actual size, 10 photographs of selected blocks at a scale of 1:5, a photographic reconstruction of the entire Frieze, educational booklets and the book “Parthenon Promenades”. The pupil can play, make his/her own casts, combine and study that wonderful body of classical sculpture.
The following publications are included:
Photographic Reconstruction of the Parthenon Frieze
The Parthenon Frieze Reconstruction Game
It can be combined with all games included in the digital application Parthenon Frieze.
The Twelve Olympian Gods
The ancient Greek gods represent universal values and symbols. Their various myths inspired and provided themes for poets, writers, musicians, painters, sculptors, in a word, for civilisation.The kit contains an introduction booklet, a pack with twelve fliers, one for each god, a pack with colour drawings featuring wellknown myths for every god, and several games.For every god, a brief description, his identities, basic myths, and sanctuaries, attributes and ancient epithets, dedicated plants and animals are given. Each god is illustrated through a statue, a temple, a vase, a coin and a work of art from Renaissance to our days.Many games, as well as, a «Who is who on Mt Olympus» intergrate the above information with symbolism, myth and famous works of art from antiquity to the 20th century. A card-game with twelve different coloured figures intrigues the child to create his own gods, to choose a colour for each one, to paint the figure, to add the attributes.
It can be combined with the game "Olympian Riddles: Find the gods" on the web application "The Parthenon Frieze"
Ancient Greek Dress
The basic aim of the Kit is to develop the critical observation and the interest of the pupils for ancient greek dress and through that proceedure their understanding of the vases, the sculpture and in general the art and everyday life of ancient Greeks. The Kit contains copies of the most characteristic ancient clothes: mens’ clothes (several himations, a chlamys and an exomis), womens’ clothes ( a peplos, chitons and himations). Raw materials, pins, brooches, belts and the Teacher's Pack, help the children study, get dressed and locate the types of dress on a vase or on a sculpture inside a Museum or on a photograph or slide.
Ancient Greek Musical Instruments
Ancient Greeks considered music a necessary element to every human artistic and intellectual activity as well as of everyday life. They believed that it forms man’s character and thus it is an ideal medium to help bringing up the young. Music was taught at school, or at home, it accompanied the games and it was present everywhere. The Kit contains copies of the original instruments: strings (a lyre ),wind (double auloi with reeds, a salpinx or trompet, a horn and Pan’s syrinx), percussion (a tympanon, two sets of crotals and a set of cymbals). With the help of slides, books and taped music, the pupils can study the instruments and locate them illustrated on ancient vases and sculptures.
Museum donation program
The first museum kits were designed in 1990, to be lent out to schools and other educational institutions. Until 2001, the Department was providing around 200 schools per year with 15 museum kits on 7 different subjects.
In 2001, an extensive special programme was completed, with the designing and reproduction of four museum kits in multiple copies («Let’s Go to the Acropolis», «A Greek Temple», «The Parthenon Frieze» and the «The Twelve Olympian Gods»). The new museum kits have evolved from the original form of 1990-1993. They are now more flexible, easier to use and can be reproduced in numbers.
Most of this material has been a standing donation of the Ministry of Culture to a network of selected schools and educational institutions throughout Greece and abroad. The choice was based on a specific evaluation procedure and most of the institutions received the kits after a special seminar on the contents and use of the museum kits in the educational process.
Funding by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation enabled the Service to produce the museum kit «Let’s Go to the Acropolis» with 100 copies in Greek and 100 in English. Additional funding from the Bodosakis Foundation provided 100 copies of the kit «A Greek Temple». The assistance of the «Association of the Friends of the Acropolis» has been valuable throughout.
These two kits were distributed to educational institutions in 2001-2002, in 47 provinces of Greece. In May 2003, a special symposium was held to evaluate the results of the use of the two museum kits by the various institutions.
The museum kit «The Parthenon Frieze» was given to 100 institutions in Greece after an in-depth seminar organised in the framework of the special programme «The Panathenaia through the Parthenon Frieze». In May 2004 another special symposium was held to evaluate the results of the use of this museum kit by the various institutions.
The museum kit «The Twelve Olympian Gods» was originally designed for the “Melina Project ; Education and Culture” and was selected in 2001 by the Hellenic Ministry of Education to be given as educational resource-material to specific schools. Ιn 2007 funding by the Stavros S. Niarchos Foundation enabled the Service to redesign the kit and produce 500 copies in greek and 300 in english to be given to schools and educational institutions.
Approximately 1300 museum kits have been donated in Greece and abroad. Distribution was spread over primary and secondary schools, over Universities, Museums and Libraries.
We estimate that they are being used by 40.000 pupils every year.
A Day in the Acropolis Museum with the Goddess Athena
Τhe Family Pack “A Day in the Acropolis Museum with the Goddess Athena” has been created in collaboration with the Acropolis Museum in the context of a programme under the same title. The purpose of the Pack is to attract families and to facilitate their visit inside the Museum. The Pack contains a series of games that help the child recognize the goddess Athena from her attributes and search for her in the Museum.
The game "A Day in the Acropolis Museum Searching for the Goddess Athena" includes cards with information about the goddess as well as a specially designed childrens' plan of the Museum and stickers with the representations of the goddess Athena. Each time the children recognise a representation of the goddess Athena, they place the corresponding sticker on the plan which they later take home.
The next game "A Day in the Acropolis Museum playing with the Symbols of the Goddess Athena", is accompanied by a series of magnets with the attributes of the goddess. The children learn the goddess's symbols and place the symbol-magnets on a drawing-magnet of Athena. In this way each child makes his/her own individual composition.
The children finish their tour of the Museum playing a memory game entitled "A Day in the Acropolis Museum Playing with the Images of the Goddess Athena". The game includes nine pairs of cards showing Athena’s faces painted on clay vases. The children search for these representations of Athena and match the pairs of cards, exercising their memory and their observation skills!
The use of the Family Pack can be combined with the on-line application "Athena, Goddess of the Acropolis".
On the occasion of the exhibition program “Archaic Colors”, the Acropolis Museum invites families to discover the archaic colors through the following games:
1. The game of discovering details in archaic statues, where color is preserved.
2. A painting box, which contains original mineral colors and pencils for children to color the Peplos Kore.
3. The DOMINO with some of the designs – in a variety of colors freely selected – that decorated mainly the clothing and earrings of the archaic korai.
Visitors also have the opportunity to continue participating in the "Archaic Colors" initiative from home, through the online digital interactive game "Color the Peplos Kore". Visitors can use the brush and colors of their choice, color the statue of the Peplos Kore and finally print and save their work as many times as they wish and in several variations.