Ancient Antiquities at The Louvre

I’ve always loved history. As a kid, I read history books, biographies, even encyclopedias, and I loved watching documentaries. I still subscribe to National Geographic and Archaeology magazines. Movies like Indiana Jones and The Goonies made me want to be an explorer. So visiting something as vast as the Louvre, and seeing its extensive collection of antiquities, was high on my list for our Paris trip.

The Louvre

The museum complex itself is so immense that fully exploring it would take days. On our visit, we knew we had to see the Mona Lisa, it would be absurd not to see the most famous piece there, but we also wanted to spend time with the ancient Greek and Egyptian collections.

Paintings and statuary from various galleries, including the most well known of them

Standing in front of these incredible pieces, from everyday ceramics to royal carvings and adornments, felt unreal. I’ve seen a few artifacts from those dynastic periods before, here and there at smaller museums, but seeing so many, spanning thousands of years, all in one place was wonderfully overwhelming.

Below: Ancient Egyptian Antiquities

When I look at them, I can’t help but imagine the people, long forgotten in time, who made them—especially the smaller, more basic objects—and how they couldn’t have known their work would end up here, hundreds or thousands of years later, viewed by millions of visitors.