The Antikythera Shipwreck Exhibit

    Dated to 60-50 BC, the shipwreck was found off the coast of Antikythera. The ship carried cargo dating from 4th to 1st century BC and was sailing towards Italy carrying among other cargo bronze and marble sculptures, glassware and jewellery, and amonst these the famous “Antikythera Mechanism”. The finds reflect the new phenomenon of art trade, the first in the history of Western civilization.

    These marble sculptures have been severely eroded by stone-eating organisms of the sea, and only their parts trapped safely in the mud of the seabed have remained wonderfully intact.

    Scarred and deformed, the half-destroyed sculptures seem even more human, nearly demonic. No longer serving as images of idealised beauty, their artistic quality has reached a new dimension, distorted by nature’s interference. Their image haunts you long after you’ve left them behind.