Museo de Prehistoria de Thera (Santorini, Grecia) - Museum of Prehistoric Thera

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• published: 19 Aug 2011
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Museo de Prehistoria de Thera (Santorini, Grecia) - Museum of Prehistoric Thera, El poblado prehistórico de Akrotiri es una de las más antiguas y más importantes centros urbanos del mar Egeo, por lo que, en términos de importancia, el Museo de Prehistoria Thera se considera igual a la Acrópolis y a los museos Vergina. Pequeño pero conciso, bien estructurado, el museo ofrece un viaje en el tiempo único en el pasado lejano de Santorini, en Grecia y ayuda al visitante a descubrir, paso tras paso, la continuidad y el progreso de la civilización de Thera a través de los siglos. Habitado desde al menos mediados del V milenio a.C., fue en el III milenio a.C. cuando Akrotiri pasó de ser una aldea de pescadores a un notable poblado en la costa. A pocos metros de la entrada del Museo, las figuras de mármol y los jarrones de pie que encontramos nos recuerdan el papel activo que desempeñó Thera, no sólo en la civilización cicládica temprana, sino en la zona del mar Egeo en general. Después de eso, las habitaciones de al lado no nos van a sorprender, pero sí sorprende el alto nivel de desarrollo alcanzado en el siglo XVII a.C. cuando se convirtió en un puerto comercial. El pueblo de Thera inventó sus propias formas de medición de la calidad, la propiedad y la procedencia de los productos básicos. Jarrones en formas estandarizadas y decoraciones, amplia gama de contrapesos de equilibrado de plomo, sellos en los vasos con los productos que llegaban de Creta, todos ellos nos hacen imaginar lo que debe de haber sido ser un comerciante en aquella época. The Museum of Prehistoric Thira houses finds from the excavations at Akrotiri, conducted under the auspices of the Archaeological Society at Athens, the earlier excavations at Potamos made by members of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, and rescue excavations at various other sites on the island, which were carried out by the 21st Ephorate of Antiquities for the Cyclades and Samos. Also on display are other objects discovered fortuitously or handed over. The exhibition is structured in four units, referring to the history of research at Thira, the geology of Thira, the island's history from the Late Neolithic to the Late Cycladic I period (early 17th century BC) and the heyday of the city at Akrotiri (mature Late Cycladic 1 period, 17th century BC). In the last unit, various aspects are presented, such as the plan and architecture of the city and its organization as an urban centre, the emergent bureaucratic system, the development of the monumental art of wall painting, the rich and diverse pottery repertoire, the elegant jewellery, the reciprocal influences between vase painting and wall painting, and the city's and island's complex network of contacts with the outside word. The exhibits include fossils of plants that flourished before the human habitation of Thira as well as archeological objects. Among the Earliest Pieces are : - Neolithic pottery, Early Cycladic marble figurines, Early Cycladic pottery, including interesting pieces of the transitional phase from Late Cycladic II to Late Cycladic III period (Kastri group) from the Christiana islands and Akrotiri (3300-2000 BC) - Middle Cycladic pottery with a series of impressive bird jugs, many of them decorated with swallows from Ftellos, Megalochori and Akrotiri (18th-20th century BC) - Early Cycladic metal artefacts from the last two sites. Noteworthy among the numerous exhibits from the period when the city at Akrotiri was at its zenith (17th century BC) are the plaster casts of furniture, the household equipment, the bronze vessels, tools and weapons, the objects that bear witness to the practice of metalworking, the sealings, seals and Linear A tablets. Impressive too are the magnificent wall painting ensembles (wall painting of Ladies and Papyri, wall painting of the Blue Monkeys) and fragments of others (the African, Adorant Monkeys, Bird, floral motifs). Last, there are numerous and luxurious clay vases including the remarkable pithos with the bull, vases of stone and of clay imported from different parts of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, and the gold ibex figurine, a remarkable recent find. The exhibition endeavours to sketch the course of Thira in prehistoric times, through selected finds from the thousands in the storerooms. This was a dynamic and creative course which established the city at Akrotiri as one of the most important Aegean centers during the 18th & 17th centuries BC.