Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2015
The new Acropolis Museum was opened in June 2009 with worldwide fanfare. For this was for the Athenian acropolis – the Acropolis. After two lower galleries, visitors reach the top floor and find what is now the world's most exciting coup of archaeological presentation – a sudden view of the Parthenon. We stand there in the middle of a gallery that sets out the temple's sculpted pediments, metopes and friezes according to the original plan. They are hung on a framework that matches the Parthenon's colonnades at the same orientation and scale and on the same plan as the great temple itself (Figure 1); so that, walking along the gallery, we can imagine ourselves in the temple by just looking out at it on the Acropolis.