After five years of conservation work overseen by the Ministry of Culture and the Ephorate of Cyclades Antiquities the scaffolding around the Episkopi monument on the island of Sikinos will be removed next month.
Initially, a burial memorial built during the Roman era, it was later used as a temple to Apollo and then converted into a Byzantine church and monastery.
It will open to visitors next spring. Meanwhile, the island’s former school will become an archaeological museum.
Exhibits will include “Neko,” a noblewoman buried in her jewellery 1,800 years ago whose remains were discovered in a grave in the vault of Episkopi.
The grave was placed in a blind spot in the underground of the monument, so that it could be spared the pillage and the grave looters.
