Parthenon Project | Autumn 2022
The Acropolis Museum was founded in 2003. It opened to the public in 2009, and was constructed in part as a response by the Greek government to the British museum’s claims that there was not an adequate place to display the Parthenon Sculptures.
The museum is located in Athens at the foot of the Acropolis, located by the southeastern slope of the hill. It was built over Roman and early Byzantine ruins. Many Greek officials expressed hope that the completion of the museum would lead to the return of the Parthenon Sculptures but no such initiatives have taken place.
The museum has an inbuilt Parthenon Gallery that exhibits the sections of the Parthenon frieze that are currently in Athens in addition to casts of the fragments that are held in other institutions (most notably, the British Museum).
The Acropolis Museum is solely dedicated to exhibiting findings from the Acropolis. It contains many of the fragments of Parthenon Marbles: most of the fragments from the Western Frieze (except blocks W1 and W2 which are held in the British Museum), almost half of the fragments of the Eastern Frieze, and a significant portion of the Northern Frieze are all located in the Acropolis Museum.