A very important exhibition of Greek antiquities entitled “The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” premiered on December 12 at the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum in Montreal.
The exhibition presents antiquities that have never traveled outside of Greece. The 543 ancient artifacts from 21 Greek museums have been compiled to present 5,000 years of Greek history.
In the opening ceremony, Greek General Secretary of Culture Lina Mendoni addressed diplomats, politicians, archaeologists, academics and people of the Greek Canadian community.
“This is the most extensive and most comprehensive exhibition on Ancient Greece that has ever been presented in North America and one of the biggest that has ever traveled outside of Greece,” the general secretary said. She also said that 21 museums have collaborated and loaned rare archaeological findings for the first time.
The exhibition is the collaboration of the Greek ministry of culture and the Consortium of North American Museums. Montreal is the first stop of the traveling exhibition. It will stay there until April 26, 2015 and on June 5 it will move to the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa.
“The Greeks: Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” will then move to the Field Museum in Chicago and its final stop will be at the National Geographic Museum in Washington DC. The exhibition will run through 2016.
The idea for the exhibition was first raised in 2012 when Jean Marc Blais, the Ottawa museum director general spoke with the Ambassador of Greece to Canada, Eleftherios Aggelopoulos about an exhibition on ancient Greece. Aggelopoulos was excited by the idea and spoke about it with his Greek superiors. Two years later, this significant exhibition became reality.
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