Northern museum approved

Alexandroupolis will finally be able to display its rich archaeological heritage in a few years’ time

By Iota Sykka - Kathimerini

The northern Greek city of Alexandroupolis has a rich archaeological history but no archaeological museum. Visitors to the city do not have the option of admiring its rich heritage in a proper exhibition hall. Excavation finds are being temporarily housed in apartments that are used as storage spaces. However, a start was made recently when the Central Archaeological Council gave its approval to the pre-study for an archaeological museum in the city, so that the hundreds of finds can get the place they deserve.

Should the work be completed within the next three years, which depends on funding, then not only will many of the storage areas be emptied but the public will also gain knowledge of the area’s treasures, which are pretty much unknown at the moment, though the region was already densely populated in the Neolithic period.

Items on display at the museum will include finds from the Neolithic period but also from more recent times, from the excavations at Toumba Makris, finds from the Iron Age from the cemeteries in Roussa, as well as items from the numerous cemeteries in Messimvria, which are now being stored in warehouses in Komotini. There will also be sculptures and inscriptions from various areas along the southern part of the River Evros, which are now in collections in Alexandroupolis, Traianoupolis and elsewhere.

The new museum will feature metal, glass and pale yellow local marble, “a dialogue between old and new,” as Ioannis Komninos, who made the pre-study, noted. It is to be constructed on Makris Avenue (the extension of the Alexandroupolis-Komotini highway) and will have two parking lots for the public and employees. The entrance is to be set in the southern wall of the building and will be sheltered.

According to the pre-study, the ticket office windows, the control room and the museum shop will be located on both sides of the entrance. Between the exhibition halls and the entrance hall, an atrium will shed plenty of light into the exhibition rooms. The floors will be done in white marble.

The budget is around 2 million euros, which is to be provided by the Public Investments Program, while the study for the museum will go under the Fourth Community Support Framework.

There were references to the greatest problem to museums in Thrace, which is humidity. It was noted that the region’s climate should be taken into account in the final study since, according to Mary Pantou, the head of the museum’s board, every time it rains, all museums leak.