PELLA ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

This archaeological museum (Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Πέλλας/Achaiologiko Mousio Pellas) is one of the richest in Northern Greece, along with those in Vergina and Thessaloniki. Established in 2009, it is housed in a modern building between the main archaeological site (to the south) and that of Pella Palace (to the north). It features a vast collection of artifacts discovered on site and very well displayed. As you enter, you are greeted by a marble head of Alexander the Great. It was sculpted by Lysippus, the Macedonian king's official portraitist, shortly after his death in 323 BC. A vast atrium then groups together four mosaics that adorned the floors of two Pella villas, the "House of Dionysus" (to the south of the agora) and the "House of Helen" (to the south-west). Made of river pebbles, they too date from the years following Alexander's death. The largest (8.48 x 2.84 m) depicts theAbduction of Helen by Theseus. This is not the abduction by Paris that triggered the Trojan War, but an earlier episode, that of the mythical king of Athens capturing the Mycenaean princess. The inscriptions refer not only to the two main characters, but also to the chariot driver, Phorvas, and to Deianeira, Helen's servant.

Stag hunt and Archontiko gallery. Second major mosaic: the Lion Hunt (4.90 x 3.20 m). It shows Alexander wearing the causia (beret), attacked by an Asiatic lion and rescued by his friend, General Cratère. Underneath is a damaged scene from theConfrontation of the Centaurs. The Dionysus mosaic (2.72 x 2.69 m) is surprisingly large, with the god reclining on a panther. And the lower area retains a detail of a griffin biting a fallow deer. But the most interesting mosaic is theStag Hunt (5.80 x 3.15 m). Here we see Alexander in the company of his dog Peritas and his friend General Hephestion. It could be an allegory of Alexander's conquest of Persia. In any case, it's the oldest Greek mosaic signed by an artist, with the inscription "Gnosis made it" (ΓΝΩΣΙΣ ΕΠΟΗΣΕΝ). Other mosaics await you upstairs, along with statuettes, jewelry, defixion tablets, children's toys... and the gallery of nobles from Archontiko, a necropolis 9 km northwest of Pella: here face each other the sumptuous mortuary finery of eleven women and eleven warriors from the ^6th century BC.