The Acropolis Museum’s newest exhibition, Allspice: Michael Rakowitz & Ancient Cultures, offers a compelling journey through time, bringing together ancient Assyrian and Greek artifacts with contemporary works by acclaimed Iraqi-American artist Michael Rakowitz. Opening on May 13 and running through October 31, 2025, this is the first in a trilogy of exhibitions unfolding across Athens through 2026, presented in collaboration with the NEON Organization.

Set within the Museum’s Temporary Exhibition Gallery, Allspice initiates a conversation between civilizations separated by millennia but united by shared themes of displacement, loss, and cultural resilience. Ancient relics from the University of Chicago’s Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Thanos N. Zintilis Collection of Cypriot Antiquities at the Museum of Cycladic Art stand alongside Rakowitz’s poignant reconstructions of destroyed Assyrian masterpieces.

At the heart of the exhibition is Rakowitz’s long-running project, The invisible enemy should not exist, a series that recreates lost artifacts using humble materials like Middle Eastern food packaging and Arabic-English newspapers. These “reappearances” do not attempt to mask the gaps left by looting and war—instead, they embrace absence as testimony, turning trauma into tangible memory.

As Culture Minister Lina Mendoni noted during the exhibition’s inauguration, the trilogy touches on more than aesthetic or academic concerns: it speaks directly to the ongoing debates about restitution, notably alluding to the Parthenon Sculptures and their contested fate. “This exhibition resonates with the wounds of cultural loss and the hope of reassembly,” she remarked.

A Taste of Memory: Language, Cuisine, and Identity

The exhibition also features new commissions by Rakowitz that deepen this dialogue. A Baghdadi Amba Dictionary blends culinary and linguistic heritage, presenting jars of homemade amba—a tangy mango condiment popular in Iraq—inscribed with phrases in the dialect passed down by Rakowitz’s mother. This gesture of preservation becomes a metaphor for cultural survival in diaspora.

Another work, Study for a Lamassu in spolia, draws a conceptual bridge between the Assyrian protective deity Lamassu and a Cypriot stone head, proposing an imagined union inspired by the ancient practice of reusing architectural fragments—spolia—as vessels of continuity.

“I’ve become homesick for Athens,” Rakowitz reflects. “The Acropolis Museum has taught me so much about fragmentation and restoration, inspiring me to see my own work in a new light.”

Upcoming Installations: Expanding the Conversation

The trilogy continues in October 2025 with a large-scale installation outside the museum: Lamassu of Nineveh (2018), a reconstruction of the monumental Assyrian statue destroyed by ISIS, now reimagined with Iraqi date syrup cans. Originally shown in London’s Trafalgar Square, the work will now stand opposite the Acropolis, placing ancient trauma in direct dialogue with modern memory.

In May 2026, the final chapter opens at the Old Acropolis Museum on the Acropolis Hill. Here, the focus shifts to diaspora and the symbolic power of everyday materials like brick and soil—markers of place, memory, and identity—offering a meditation on cultural layering and endurance.

Exhibition Info
Allspice | Michael Rakowitz & Ancient Cultures
Acropolis Museum, Temporary Exhibition Gallery
Dates: 13 May – 31 October 2025


Opening Hours

  • Monday: 9:00–17:00
  • Tue–Thu, Sat–Sun: 9:00–20:00
  • Friday: 9:00–22:00