What Can You See Inside the Stoa of Attalos in Athens?

At the Ancient Agora, the Stoa of Attalos gives you a rare chance to stand inside the outline of an ancient shopping street. Before entering the museum on the ground floor, pause beneath the colonnade. Look along the sheltered walkway and across it toward the rooms at the back.

Was the Stoa of Attalos a temple or a shopping building?

It was a two-story commercial building. Both floors had a covered walkway with twenty-one shops behind it. From one end, look along the row of doorways and imagine each opening into a separate shop. A customer could move between them in the shade while still looking out onto the public square. King Attalos II of Pergamon gave the building to Athens in the second century BCE.

Why does this building look so complete?

Excavators rebuilt the stoa in the twentieth century. It has housed the Agora Museum since 1957. As you stand under the roof, compare the height of the columns with the low foundations across the square. Those foundations once supported buildings that enclosed rooms and cast shade just as this one does. The reconstruction gives you a human scale to carry back outside.

Which objects help explain Athenian democracy?

Two small finds tell particularly vivid stories. Look for ostraka, pieces of broken pottery on which citizens scratched a name when voting on ostracism. A piece of a pot could help send a politician into exile. Then look for the clay water clock used in court. Water flowing out of the vessel measured a speaker’s allotted time. One object records a choice, the other sets a limit on the argument.