An unprecedented exhibition of antiquities from Greece— many of which have never left the country before— drew more than a quarter of a million Canadians at two separate exhibitions in 2015.
More than 151,000 people visited “The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” at the Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa this summer and fall, according to museum statistics released on October 15th.
The exhibition ran for just over four months, closing Oct. 12. Before Ottawa, the show enjoyed a four-and-a-half-month stay at Montreal’s Pointe-à-Callière archaeological centre. Opening Dec. 12 last year, it drew just over 132,000 visitors by the time it closed in late April.
Attendance at both venues was well within what authorities predicted for the exhibition and deemed “very successful” as a result. Assembled by a consortium of North American museums, The Greeks featured some 500 treasures of ancient Greece, an estimated 300 of which had never been lent outside the country.
More than 20 Greek museums, galleries and cultural institutions provided artifacts for the exhibition, which spanned some 5,000 years of Greek history.
Montreal and Ottawa were the sole Canadian stops for the show, which now travels to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for a late November opening. In May 2016, the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C. plays host.