There is always a bit of controversy when monuments are rebuilt, often looking out of place amongst the surrounding ruins… but the Stoa of Attalos, which was reconstructed in 1952-6, is a fantastic space in the Athenian Agora. As a faithful replica of what the original would have looked like, it gives the visitor a sense of the grandeur of these ancient porticoes which would have once surrounded the agora and also lets you experience for yourself the welcome cooling shade they provided.  It is easy to see how philosophers once sat amongst such colonnaded walkways debating the world.

The stoa is now the archives for the American School of Archaeology which runs excavations here in the agora every summer. Most recently they have been working on what seems to be the remains of the Painted Stoa where Zeno and his followers (soon to be known as ‘stoics’) worked. It was known as the Painted Stoa due to famous paintings of the Battle of Marathon that hung on the walls. They were admired throughout antiquity but being painted on wood are sadly now lost.

The museum shows some of the incredible things  found here – unsurprising since the agora was the centre of Ancient Athens. From ostraka with incised names of those to be exiled (some of them very famous such as Themistokles!) to hemlock cups which Socrates himself might have drunk from, it really is a museum of superb material and it is fantastic to view such objects straight after walking around the site in which they were found. And instead of being housed in a modern-looking museum, I would choose this rebuilt wonder any day.