ATHANASAKIO MUSEUM

The Volos Archaeological Museum (Αθανασάκειο Αρχαιολογικό Μουσείο Βόλου/Athanaskio Archaiologiko Mouiso Volou) has seven halls featuring artifacts from the Paleolithic to the Roman period unearthed at a dozen sites around the city. It is named in honor of its founder, philanthropist Alexios Athanasakis (1843-1933), a businessman from the Pelion village of Protaria who made his fortune trading with Egypt. With its pleasant garden, the museum is housed in a neoclassical building dating from 1909, near the small beaches of Volos (400 m to the south) and alongside the large Achillopoulio hospital. A large part of the permanent exhibition is devoted to the important sites of Dimini (6 km west of Volos, entrance fee payable) and Sesklo (12 km west, currently closed), with a rich collection of Neolithic finds (6800-2000 BC)C.): some of the oldest farming tools in Europe, a reconstituted stone house, fragments of pottery decorated with human faces in relief, a magnificent chased vase, a child's tomb... From Dimini also come superb gold objects from the Mycenaean period (^16th-11th centuries).

Painted stelae of Demetrias. Another site in the spotlight is Phères (20 km to the north-west, near Velestino, open to the public). Known for its Homerian heroes of the Trojan War and Euripides' tragedy Alcestis, this was a powerful city, and here we find a beautiful head of Aphrodite, red-figure ceramics and an artist's bowls still containing their pigments. Also of note are the Hellenistic statues in the temple of Apollo at Amphanae (9 km to the south, near Agios Stefanos, open to the public): a large Apollo at the side of the (small) donor and a surprisingly realistic young boy seated without a head (or modesty!). Last but not least, don't miss the moving collection of funerary stelae from the ancient city of Demetrias (5 km to the south, theater and palace sites, entrance fee payable). These tombstones feature colorful frescoes depicting the deceased, ordinary inhabitants of this city founded by the Macedonians in 293 BCC: Demetrios son of Olympos, Jason son of Antipatros, Stratonikos of Herakloea, Archidice daughter of Aristomachos... Also from Demetrias come the intriguing statue of a seated warrior from Galatia (in the center of today's Turkey), a treasure trove of silver coins and a long inscription from 184 B.C. laying down the regulation color of clothes for tutors of children from good families: dark gray only!