(ANSA-AFP) - ATHENS, 17 FEB - A new museum showcasing
thousands of ancient archaeological artefacts found at sea will
open next year at the Greek port of Piraeus near Athens,
officials said on Monday. The EU-funded museum -- the largest
cultural project currently underway in Greece -- has a budget of
more than 93 million euros. Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said
the new 26-square-metre (6.8-square-metre) building would
display "thousands of finds emerging for years from the depths
of the Greek seas", without giving further details. Besides
archaeology, the museum at the country's largest port will also
highlight Greece's rich shipping history, she said. "Our country
needed such a museum for decades," Prime Minister Kyriakos
Mitsotakis said while on a visit to the site on Monday. The
museum, expected to open in the summer of 2026, will occupy part
of the Piraeus docks, incorporating some existing elements from
a 1930s storage silo. According to the culture ministry, it will
display more than 2,500 antiquities including many now in
storage in Pylos, Rhodes and Paros. In antiquity Piraeus was the
principal port of ancient Athens, from which its distinctive
trireme ships would sail across the Mediterranean Sea. The
city's small archaeological museum currently has a bronze naval
ram and marble eye from a 4th-century trireme on display.
(ANSA-AFP).
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