On November 19, the Historical Museum of Armenia will open the exhibition "Ancient Armenia" at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. More than 170 objects will be sent from Yerevan for the show, spanning the period from the Stone Age to the adoption of Christianity. This was reported to the Armenpress news agency by Ndzhde Yeranyan, deputy scientific director of the Armenian museum.
For the Acropolis Museum, which welcomed nearly two million visitors in 2025, this is the first exhibition in a new series devoted to ancient civilizations. It will run until spring 2027. An illustrated book will be published for the opening.
The exhibition will tell the story of Armenia, including the ancient kingdom of Urartu, and of the country's ties with Greece in antiquity. Among the exhibits from Yerevan are a silver ceremonial battle axe from the 23rd–22nd centuries BCE and a gold spoon from the 1st century BCE, as well as finds from Lchashen, Tolors, Karashamb, Sisian and Artashat. The Greek side will provide a bronze shield from the 7th century BCE, found on Crete.
The director of the Historical Museum of Armenia, Davit Poghosyan, and the director general of the Acropolis Museum, Nikolaos Stampolidis, signed a cooperation agreement in February, during the state visit of Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan to Greece. Poghosyan described this as an important achievement. Originally, the parties had agreed on an exhibition of just over one hundred objects, but the final display turned out to be considerably larger. The agreement also provides for an exchange of professional experience between the two museums.
As Ndzhde Yeranyan noted, such exhibitions are important not only for broadening visitors' horizons but also for cultural diplomacy. In recent weeks, the Historical Museum of Armenia opened a joint exhibition with the Museum Island in Berlin in Yerevan, and earlier it collaborated with the British Museum and the Louvre.
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