The Greek capital’s award-winning Acropolis Museum is turning the big 1-0 on June 20 and to celebrate, there are a number of huge events planned for the public.
Since its grand opening in 2009, the museum has received 14.5 million visitors from Greece and abroad.
“During the museum’s first years of operation, which coincided with the economic crisis, the number of visitors reached 1 million [annually].
In 2018 however, the museum received 1.8 million visitors, which is a significant increase,” Dimitris Pantermalis, the director of the Acropolis Museum, told reporters during a press conference on Wednesday.
Pantermalis also added that the Acropolis Museum has been included among the world’s five most significant museums by ICOM, the International Council of Museums.
The Acropolis Museum covers a total area of 25,000 square meters, with exhibition space of over 14,000 square meters, which is 10 times more than the exhibition area of the old museum on the Acropolis Hill.
It houses over 4,000 exhibits while its top floor is dedicated to the Parthenon, the monument’s friezes and sculptures.
To mark its 10th birthday, on June 21, the museum will officially open its underground excavation site, which is currently visible through the glass floor at its entrance.
The excavations have revealed an area of 4,000sq.m. which includes the ruins of an ancient Athens neighborhood, dating from the Classical period through to Byzantine times, and includes houses, streets, workshops and bathhouses.
The site will also be enriched with the most significant mobile findings of the excavation, which offer valuable information on everyday life in ancient Athens.
The museum’s underground collection will be accessible with the general admission ticket.
*Source: GTPHeadlines
