Pella Museum

From the archaeological site we drove up to the Pella museum, which is close to the ancient city’s palace. Unfortunately, at present the palace is not open to the public but when it is it will be accessed from one of the galleries of the museum.

Pottery items including craters (for mixing water and wine) and some ‘interesting’ drinking vessels
[Ed: perhaps for wild parties – look closely bottom right!]    

Unlike most of the museums we had visited recently, which have been laid out on chronological lines, this one is laid out thematically. This means that, for example, pottery through the ages is found in one display, life in the city (through the ages) in another – there seems to be less jumping back and forth over the same ground, as it were.

Reconstructed ceramic workshop, Eastern side of the Agora 1^st century BC   

We saw a reconstruction of the ceramic workshop from the eastern side of the agora as it might have looked around the 1^st century BC [Ed: though probably a little tidier!].

(Right) A jar burial – common for children’s graves   

However, most of the information and display items at the museum have come from studying the burial sites from around the city. The oldest graveyard at Pella dates from the Bronze Age, the 3^rd millennium BC, long before the new capital of the Macedonian kingdom was established there. Grave goods from that site primarily comprise clay vessels and metal goods from the Early and Middle Bronze Age. There are also tombs from the Early Iron Age (9^th-7^th century BC) and rock-cut graves from the 6^th and 5^th centuries BC. Archaeologists have therefore shown an unbroken record of human habitation at Pella from the Early Bronze Age right through to the 1^st century BC. At this time Roman takeover, a massive earthquake and silting of the Thermic Gulf (on which Pella was sited) all combined to encourage the population to move away from the centre of the ancient city and to a suburb, near the site of the modern town.

The graves contained essential items that the deceased would need in the afterlife. For the women this included fabulous jewellery, perfumes and, because of the potential parties, wine flagons and cups.

The men’s tombs also contained the essential party wines and cups but also their weapons. Interestingly, only the very wealthy were buried with their bronze helmets; clearly there were a lot of wealthy people in Pella.

Original mosaics from Dionysus’ House, in the museum to preserve them   

Models of Helen (upper) and Dionysos’ (lower) Houses

The museum also contains models of the 2 houses we’d seen at the archaeological site; Helen’s house and Dionysus’ house. The mosaics have been removed from the site to protect them from the weather and so here in the museum we were able to see the originals in all their glory. They are fabulous mosaics. With the colouring and all the shading and outlining using different tiles and ceramic-work, from the photographs it would be it would be easy to think that you were looking at paintings rather than mosaic.

Gold diadem   

A separate part of the museum focussed specifically on the gold items that had been found. Spectacular items of jewellery, in particular golden diadems, were on display. It was a lovely museum, better in many respects that the 2 main museums in Thessaloníki (though, to be fair, the subject matter at the Pella museum is far more limited), and Nicky said that she could easily have spent longer there. However, more beautiful gold artefacts were calling to us from Vergina, so it was time to leap back into the trusty Punto and head off southwest.

Pella, Greece