New museums, exhibitions and site presentations

Extract

Since 2009 Greece has faced one of its most challenging phases in modern history; the financial and social crisis has affected all sectors of society and spending for cultural activities has been significantly cut. Although there have been museum closures and funds for research or even day-to-day needs are in short supply, nevertheless, very serious and creative work is being produced quietly, often with the aid of European Union co-funded projects, through the so-called ΕθνικόΣτρατηλικό Πλαίσιο Aναϕοράς (EΣΠA), or National Strategic Reference Framework. The schedule and deadlines for such projects are very tight and working conditions challenging, but the results have often been exceptional in quality, revealing hard work, effective management of people of various specialisms and scholarly expertise. The period 2015–2016 has seen the opening of many new major museums, the result of many years of planning and hard work, and the organization of temporary exhibitions, through which the finds of the last decade have become accessible to the wider public. In this feature I concentrate on a brief presentation of the new museums that have opened this past year, news that will interest not only students and academics, but also other visitors to Greece. Colleagues in the various relevant ephorates of antiquities have been very generous in providing information, and so I have decided to leave their texts largely unchanged. I begin with a brief presentation of new museums, before moving on to discuss temporary exhibitions and a few key archaeological sites.