NEW ACQUISITIONS / NEW APPROACHES

In the context of the exhibition institution entitled “New acquisitions / New approaches”, a prominent showcase in the reception area of the museum welcomes visitors, introducing them to some of its most interesting antiquities, both new and old.

Objects that were either recently acquired and presented to the scientific and general public for the first time or were pulled from the shelves to be exhibited in the light of a new approach, such as after a restoration process, a new interpretation or new scientific data.

New interpretations of old finds from ancient Olynthos
For the first time, four bronze vessels found in the houses of ancient Olynthos during the excavation of the city by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (1928-1938) are presented to the public and are included in the 1941 publication by the director of the excavation, Professor D.M. Robinson.

All four date to the 5th-4th century BC. Three of them are described in the 1941 publication as a ‘bowl of peculiar and not very elegant shape’, a ‘goblet with a high foot’ and a ‘strainer’, respectively. However, recent research at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki has shown that all three are censers. The fourth vessel, a navel-shaped bowl kept in the museum’s storage room as ‘of unknown origin’, was recently identified with a bowl from a house in Olynthos, also included in the same publication.

In the light of the new approach, all four vessels found in houses in Olynthos can be safely associated with domestic worship, which was manifested, among other things, by burning incense and making libations in honour of gods, heroes and the dead. Through the reinterpretation, identification and conservation of these old finds, our knowledge of the practice of private worship in a city such as Olynthos, in which no public sanctuaries have been identified, although it is the best researched city of the Classical period in Macedonia, is enriched.

A short tour of the “New Acquisitions/New Approaches” will be given at regular intervals by a museum archaeologist.