The museum was closed for about two years whilst the building underwent renovation. For quite a while it was just a huge hole in the ground. Nobody was very sure precisely what was going on but a modern building gradually went up and finally, in December 2014, the museum re-opened. And finally, earlier this week, we got around to going to take a look at what had been done inside.
The ethnographic section appears to have gone, leaving it as a purely archaeological museum. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. The oldest finds from the area are pre-6000 BC, there are bronze age items and, of course, plenty from the Greek and Roman eras.
The museum now contains displays arranged in chronological order which does make the progressions easy to understand. The labeling still leaves something to be desired as it can be difficult to identify the items to which the labels should apply. The rooms are darkened. Quite honestly, it is a while since we last visited the museum, we visit a lot of museums and we didn’t think that it was all that different!
Which is not to say that it is unimpressive…
- A Roman copy of what may have been the Artemis Cult Statue
- Ivory carving
- Ivory carving
- Ivory carving
- Ivory carving
- Bronze of an Egyptian Priest
- Another bronze