The ‘Mentis’ and ‘Antonopoulos’ manufactories are among the oldest companies in the field of thread processing and the production of silk-making items, and the only workshop still operating in Greece that continue to produce ribbons, braids, tassels, fringes, and other passementerie products using traditional methods. The legacy of these two manufactories was saved thanks to a groundbreaking initiative by the Benaki Museum, which created a centre for preserving, researching and promoting ‘silken arts’ at the Athenian neighborhood of Petralona: Mentis – Antonopoulos (‘NEMA’) Passementerie. The space also hosts educational and exhibition activities, serving as a living center of intangible cultural heritage. (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

The Mentis – Antonopoulos (‘NEMA’) Passementerie of the Benaki Museum collaborated with the House of Dior for the Cruise 2022 collection, presented at the Panathenaic Stadium.

The Dior Cruise 2022 collection at the Acropolis. © Filmed at the Archeological Site of the Acropolis of Athens and the Odeon of Herodes Atticus.

Dior’s artistic director Maria Grazia Chiuri envisioned a celebration of creativity and craftsmanship rooted in the cultural dialogue between Greece and France. Determined to showcase the richness of contemporary Greek artistry, Dior sought to engage local creators, visual artists, and traditional artisans whose work continues to shape Greece’s cultural landscape. This vision naturally led to a partnership with the Mentis–Antonopoulos textile workshop (NEMA). During her visit to the NEMA workshop on Polyfimou Street in Petralona, Chiuri was inspired by the living tradition of Greek textile craftsmanship. As a result, Dior commissioned decorative elements for the hats featured in the show, with production carried out by the Tsalavoutas family workshop, renowned for its handmade sailors’ caps. NEMA specifically produced the twisted handmade cord adorning the brim of the traditional nautical cap reimagined for the Cruise 2022 collection.

Under the guidance of NEMA textile supervisor, ethnologist Virginia Matseli, a series of accessories for the hats was created, overseen by the British designer Stephen Jones, who has been associated with the House of Dior as its artistic director of millinery for more than 25 years. “A Greek fisherman’s cap, special edition”, adorned with a braid, the Christian Dior signature, and jacquard laurel leaves, says Stephen Jones. “When they would come back from sea, the tradition is their wives would reknot the braid” he adds, describing the new essential as a “symbol of home, hope, happiness and family” (© Film directed by Marianna Economou) (Photos: elculture.gr)

‘NEMA’ Passementerie Museum at Petralona, Athens (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

 (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

The first step towards the creation of ‘NEMA’ was taken in 2012 with the rescue of ‘Mentis’ Passementerie from oblivion. The business was founded in 1867 in Nafplio but soon after moved to Athens in order to cater for the needs of its main clients, the Royal Court and the Palace Guard. The original workshop on Kerykeiou Street in Monastiraki included a silk workshop, a weaving facility and a dye house whereas a separate silk cocoon incubation house was located in the area of Mets. In 2011 the business closed and its equipment was donated to the Benaki Museum by Marina, Othon and Spyros Mentis. The workshop was refurbished and opened again in December 2012.

 In 2014 the Benaki Museum welcomed another donation, of the Georgios Antonopoulos family manufactory. The Benaki Museum refurbished a new space on 10 Polyfemou Street as well as the original space on no 6 so that the new donation was housed. It includes the complete archive of the business, many products and its entire equipment, among which two rare Jacquard looms. The collection was inventoried and researched by the Head of ‘NEMA,’ ethnologist Virginia Matseli. (Source: Benaki Museum)

Historical passementerie products of the Menti company (Photos: Athens Voice). The ‘Mentis’ and ‘Antonopoulos’ manufactories supplied over decades passementerie products to fashion, interior and costume designers, furniture upholsterers as well as military and ecclesiastical tailors. Their client lists included the Presidential (formerly Palace) Guard, the Greek National Opera, the Greek National Theatre, the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron), the Greek Organization of Small & Medium Sized Enterprises & Handicrafts (EOMMEX), the Greek Royal Welfare Fund, the Lyceum Club of Greek Women and many others in Greece and internationally (Source: Benaki Museum)

The Menti family: Spyros, his wife Anna, and their four children. From left: Giorgos, Dimitris, Anastasia, Othon (left), The Menti shop (right) (Photos: Athens Voice)

 (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

 (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

 ‘NEMA’ has developed into a centre for preserving traditional techniques of thread manufacture, weaving and embroidery. To this end, the Benaki Museum Education department works with specialist craftspeople and offers lifelong-learning courses focusing on these traditional techniques. The Benaki Museum Shop, in an effort to marry old expertise and contemporary creativity, works with artists using raw materials from ‘NEMA’ for their creations (photo above). Their works are offered for sale at the various Benaki Shop outlets (Photo: © Benaki Museum / Leonidas Kourgiantakis)

The Benaki Museum Shop currently presents the exhibition “From Ink to Silk” by Nikomachi Karakostanoglou and the Art Rug Projects initiative by Ilektra Soutzoglou. The exhibition is hosted in the historic space of the Mentis–Antonopoulos (NEMA) Passementerie of the Benaki Museum, until December 5, 2025. The collaboration between these two women goes beyond a shared artistic project—it is a meaningful encounter between two worlds connected through history, heritage, weaving, and art. All of this unfolds within a space that carries its own profound memory. NΕMA serves not only as the backdrop for the exhibition but as an integral part of it—a living vessel of Greek textile history that today hosts its continuation in a contemporary, creative form.

General view of the exhibition “From Ink to Silk” at the NEMA Museum (Photo: nikomachi.k_studio). The creative encounter between visual artist Nikomachi Karakostanoglou and the Art Rug Projects initiative by Electra Soutzoglou brings together an artist and a historic carpet weaving company in a dialogue between matter and spirit, past and present, the gesture of art and the art of hand-weaving in an act of translation and transformation

Works by Nikomachi Karakostanoglou for the exhibition “From Ink to Silk”: Aegean Atoll (upper), Intimately Close (lower left), Imprint (lower right). In this bold project, visual artist Nikomachi Karakostanoglou steps in as a creative voice, bringing her own cultural heritage into the conversation. In her practice, she approaches material not simply as a vessel for form, but as a carrier of memory, energy, and sensation. Light and water are fundamental elements in her work—not merely as images, but as ways of perceiving the world: endless, fluid, intangible, and ever-present. This flow continues when her work is translated into a silk carpet. Her visual language becomes more tactile through weaving, yet retains its poetic nature (Source: Benaki Museum)

The story of the Soutzoglou family begins in Sparta of Asia Minor in 1900, where Nikolaos Soutzoglou founded one of the first Greek carpet workshops. Following the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922, he restarts the business all over again in Greece. The third generation, represented by Electra Soutzoglou, now breathes new life into the art of weaving by linking the traditional art of carpet-making with contemporary art. Looking towards the future, Electra launched Art Rug Projects, a platform where contemporary Greek and international artists are invited to transfer their visual works onto carpets—turning painting into weaving and artistic design into handcrafted objects of art.

Since 2017, visual artist Nikomachi Karakostanoglou has been exclusively working on her drawings and sculptures, challenging herself through the scale of the works and the materials she has collected during her travels across Asia. In 2023, under commission by the Onassis Foundation’s Stegi, she created two outdoor sculptures: “Drop of Knowledge” and “Flow.” She has held solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad. Her works are part of private collections as well as the collections of MOMus, the Benaki Museum, and the Onassis Foundation.

General view of the exhibition “From Ink to Silk” at the NEMA Museum. Art Rug Projects by Soutzoglou focuses on interactive collaborations with Greek and international contemporary artists, whose selected works are transformed into handmade rugs and tapestries—either as one-of-a-kind artworks or limited editions (Photo: Benaki Museum)

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Soufli, the village of silk | A traditional industry comes back to life

New ‘Chic’ Revives Greek Silk

Weaving Dreams” in the village of Geraki

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The exhibition “Art in Gold. Jewellery in Hellenistic Times” is presented at the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture and will run through to 27 April 2025. In addition to objects from the Benaki Museum collections, the exhibition includes works from 30 museums and Ephorates of Antiquities in Greece, and five European museums. (Cover Photo: Gold hair ornament with a bust of the goddess Athena on the emblem from the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, late 3^rd - early 2^nd c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum)

The aim of the exhibition is to present items of jewellery as objects replete with meaning and to explore the techniques of their making. It concentrates on the art of gold during the Hellenistic period, which commences conventionally in 323 BCΕ, year of the death of Alexander the Great, and lasts until 30 BCΕ, when Rome annexed Egypt. In the Hellenistic Ecumene, which extended from the Adriatic to Afghanistan and from Ethiopia as far as today’s Ukraine, a vast network of kingdoms and cities was established. Within these borders, there was a constant movement of diverse, multilingual populations, including many artisans exchanging knowledge and information. It was precisely this exchange that led to an extraordinary flourishing of technical know-how and a cultural osmosis that proved decisive in the development and consolidation of a shared artistic language, expressed even in the jewellery of the period. The unprecedented quantity of gold which Alexander the Great appropriated from the treasuries of the Persian kings is manifested in this jewellery. The conspicuous display of luxury, apparent in the ‘baroque’ aesthetic of the pieces, the complex techniques, the almost superfluous extravagance, and the increased use of precious and semiprecious stones reflect the ideology of Hellenistic monarchy. (Source: Benaki Museum)

Gold earrings with tiny figures of Muses playing the lyre, late 4^th c. BC, Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold earrings with pendants in the form of bull’s heads and acorns. From ancient Lete (Derveni), Thessaloniki, Macedonia, 330-300 BC, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki (right)

A wide variety of jewelry types were produced in the Hellenistic period—earrings, necklaces, pendants, pins, bracelets, armbands, thigh bands, finger rings, wreaths, diadems, and other elaborate hair ornaments. And jewelry was frequently produced in matched sets. Many pieces were inlaid with pearls and dazzling gems or semi-precious stones—emeralds, garnets, carnelians, banded agates, sardonyx, chalcedony, and rock crystal. Artists also incorporated colorful enamel inlays that dramatically contrasted with their intricate gold settings. Elaborate subsidiary ornamentation drew plant and animal motifs, or the relation between adornment and the goddess, Aphrodite, and her son Eros. Airborne winged figures, such as Eros, Nike, and the eagle of Zeus carrying Ganymede up to Mount Olympus, were popular designs for earrings (Source: THE MET - Hellenistic Jewelry)

Part of a gold necklace with beads of semiprecious stones and a lynx head terminal,  1^st c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold finger-ring of wires in the form of snakes and bezels set with emeralds and garnets. From Alexandria, Egypt, 1st c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum (right)

In the exhibition, items of gold jewellery, a female prerogative par excellence, are approached as means of promoting a person’s social status and wealth, as companions at critical stages in the life cycle (coming-of-age, marriage, death), as objects with amuletic and apotropaic properties, as votive offerings to deities, as investments of economic capital, and as adornments for the dress and the body.

Apart from items of jewellery, which form the core of the exhibition, terracotta figurines and decorated vases illustrate the way in which jewellery was worn.

Terracotta bust of a young woman with a painted depiction of her necklace. From the Hellenistic necropolis of Amphipolis, Macedonia, 3^rd c. BC, Ephorate of Antiquities of Serres/Archaeological Museum of Amphipolis (left), Attic black-glaze pyxis with gilded decoration of necklace motifs. 330-320 BC. Athens, Benaki Museum (the vase-type known as pyxis  had small size and was used as a container for cosmetics and jewellery) (right)

At the centre of the exhibition gallery is the so-called ‘Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard’, which is held at the Benaki Museum and the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Destined for use by women, these exquisite creations of the jeweller’s craft have been attributed to an important Macedonian workshop and probably belonged to members of the Macedonian royal court.

Gold necklace with woven band and rows of pendants. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, late 3^rd- early 2^nd c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum

Gold precious diadem with the central part formed as a Herakles Knot. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, Late 3^rd - early 2^nd c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum

Gold torque with lunx heads at the terminals. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, 2^nd c. BC., Athens, Benaki Museum (left), Gold finger-ring with an intaglio representation of the goddess Nike (personification of victory. From the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, early 2^nd c. BC,  Athens, Benaki Museum (right)

 The ‘Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard’ is an impressive set of 44 gold artifacts, 9 of which are in the Benaki Museum and 35 in the National Archaeological Museum, as part of the Eleni and Antonios Stathatos Collection, whichcomprises some 970 objects which cover all the periods of Greek civilization, from prehistory (5^th millennium BC) to modern times (18^th century). It is currently a part of the Vase and Minor Objects Collection of the National Archaeological Museum. The artifacts from "Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard" were donated in 1957 by Eleni Stathatou, who had acquired them in 1929 from an antique dealer in Athens. According to an unverified testimony, the treasure was found in Karpenisi, Central/Western Greece. However, the exact circumstances of their discovery are not known. It shows similarities with ensembles from southern ancient Thessaly, such as the "Dimitrias Hoard" kept in the National Archaeological Museum or the jewelry in the collection of the Princeton University Museum. All of the above findings come from richly endowed female burials, highlighting an economically robust community with a strong social and economic stratification, of important settlements of southern Thessaly.

In 1966, the late actress Elena Nathanael participated in a highly aesthetic photo shoot in the Atrium of the National Archaeological Museum for the magazine Paris Match by the famous photographer Jack Garofalo, as part of the country's cultural promotion. She posed next to the famous Lion of Kerameikos, wearing top masterpieces from the Collection of Eleni Stathatou at the National Archaeological Museum. Both the collector and the Ministry of Culture approved this photo shoot. It was the first and last time that archaeological treasures were worn by a model: the archaic 'Earring of the Sphinxes' from Argos, one of the two elaborate armlets and the finger choker 'of the Snakes' from the “Karpenisi Hoard”, and a necklace from Troy. (Source: evrytanikospalmos.gr,  Photo by Jack Garofalo/Paris Match via Gettyimages) 

Α section of the exhibition is dedicated to the technology of Hellenistic goldsmithing, researched for the first time ever in microscopic detail by the Benaki Museum Department of Conservation. It includes the contents of a second-century BCE jeweller’s toolkit, on loan from the National Museum of Bosnia-Herzegovina. A video records a three-year-long process of experimental archaeology, during which a portion of a priceless Hellenistic gold diadem in the Benaki Museum collection was reconstructed by Akis Goumas, a contemporary jeweller and researcher into the techniques of ancient Greek jewellery-making. To introduce the basic techniques of Hellenistic jewellery, specially commissioned animation videos reconstruct how five items in the Benaki Museum collection were made.

Gold wreath of flowering myrtle. From a grave in the ancient Pydna cemetery, Pieria, Macedonia, 350-325 BC, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki

Irini Papageorgiou, archaeologist and curator at the Benaki Museum told Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA), "The initial idea took form nearly eight years ago when I first collaborated with Akis Goumas, jeweller and researcher of ancient jellery making techniques. I proposed that he reconstruct section of the diadem from the Thessaly Hoard, a precious and valuable diadem of extremely complicated construction. Within about 3.5 years, Akis Goumas reconstructed a section of the knitted chain and one of the two plaques shown in the section on technology". Papageorgiou added, "Hellenistic jewellery reconstructions have been carried out by others also, but with modern tools. The difference - and the innovation we provide in the reconstruction - is that we found traces of ancient tools on the original piece of jewellery, and we were based on these to construct the tools we show at the exhibition and which were used in the experimental application". (Source: ANA-MPA)

The final section of the exhibition is dedicated to jewellery by eight contemporary artists who drew inspiration for their creations from Hellenistic-period items in the Benaki Museum.

Akis Goumas, Honoris Causa I, 2024, Brooch with elements from the plaquette of the large diadem from the “Thessaly/Karpenisi Hoard”, Κ24 gold, steel, thin iron foil, Hammering, filigree (spiral beaded, twisted wire), following the Hellenistic tradition (left), Dimitris Nikolaidis, Daisies, 2024, Impressed, hammered foils of oxidized titanium, K22 and K24 gold wires, K24 gold foil, Inspired by a Hellenistic necklace in the Benaki Museum collection (right)

Permanent exhibition of gold jewellery at the National Archaeological Museum

The Collection of gold jewels of the National Archaeological Museum is one of the most significant in the world due to the quality and uniqueness of the artefacts it consists of, but also due to the certified origin of many of these. The exhibition of gold jewellery that opened its gates to the public in February 2009 is presented in Room 62 on the upper floor of the National Archaeological Museum. It is the first ever display of objects made of precious materials, which were kept in the Museum’s treasury. Along with the gold and silver jewellery, silver vessels, sealstones and works of minor arts made of ivory are also on show. Superb creations of goldsmithing coming from different regions of mainland Greece and the islands are displayed in 24 showcases. They have been made either by hammering or casting, whereas their decoration involves repousse, filigree, incision or granulation and, in later times they were inlaid with precious and semiprecious stones. Their time span covers the period from the Geometric to the Roman times. The exhibition is chronologically arranged and whenever possible, as a result of their certified provenance, the artefacts are presented as excavation ensembles or topographic entities. (Source: National Archaeological Museum)

Read also:

A brief history of Greek jewellery

Greece & Jewellery: A Long-lasting Love Affair

Τhe Archaeological Site of Aigai (Vergina)

I.A.

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