ATHENS, Nov 2 (Reuters) – In a domed passageway outdoors Athens, crowds research show panels and look down although glass beneath their toes at a mosaic ground from a 4th century BC home surrounded by ceramics and different home objects.
They are not guests to a museum, nonetheless, however passengers on a brand new subway line that hyperlinks Piraeus, the ocean port that serves the capital, with its airport.
The mini-exhibition of artefacts, which additionally options unique elements and copies of an historic irrigation system of wells and cisterns, is embedded within the construction of the terminus at Piraeus, which was inaugurated final month.
Subway builder Attiko Metro labored carefully with archaeologists to create it, and the trove represents a spotlight of hundreds of artefacts discovered in the course of the line’s development.
“We’re giving the passenger a small style of an on a regular basis second in an (historic) Piraeus home,” mentioned archaeologist Stella Chryssoulaki.
With a lot historical past mendacity beneath the soil, constructing underground subway strains in Greece – the primary was inaugurated in central Athens in 2000 – has at all times been a fragile subject.
“Now we have confirmed right here in Piraeus that (historical past and modernity) can co-exist. There’s at all times a approach,” mentioned Attiko Metro’s undertaking director Evangelos Kolovos, whose groups needed to adapt to archaeologists’ wants whereas not delaying it or exceeding its 730 million euro ($723 million) price range.
RARE FINDS
Working at a depth of as much as 17 meters (56ft), the archaeological excavation spanned ten years and lined 7,500 sq. meters as six stations and a 7.6-km (4.7-mile) extension tunnel have been constructed.
[1/5] Family objects of an historic Greek home are seen at an exhibition inside Piraeus subway station, close to Athens, Greece, October 19, 2022. REUTERS/Louiza Vradi
“We have been placing the soil in large luggage, eradicating it rigorously, in order that we might proceed the excavation, and in one other place spreading it (out), and we gave the archaeologists the chance to examine there and take away all of the (discoveries),” Kolovos mentioned.
One discover specifically nonetheless resonates with him.
“They discovered a small historic ring. They put it in my hand. I’m nonetheless touched once I keep in mind this,” he mentioned
In a Piraeus workshop, artefacts – together with some retrieved from historic wells that the archaeologists have been lowered into whereas hooked up to ropes – fill crates stacked to the ceiling, whereas damaged remnants are unfold out on lengthy tables as conservators piece them collectively.
“We noticed… small objects which we did not learn about, and… are nonetheless undecided what numerous them are used for. An enormous discipline of analysis has opened up earlier than us,” mentioned Chryssoulaki.
The staff have been unable to salvage all of the cisterns, although related ones have been dug up up to now. They frolicked painstakingly preserving rarer finds, together with a wood door that will have decomposed if uncovered to dry air.
For passengers transiting via the port, from the place ferries carry vacationers to the Greek islands, journey time from the brand new station to the airport is underneath an hour. As they cross via, they could now be reminded of different, long-departed travellers.
“On the floor, and underneath the floor, we are going to at all times have all these layers of people that handed via right here, lived right here, fell in love, fought, and felt ache right here,” Chryssoulaki mentioned.
($1 = 1.0099 euros)
Reporting By Deborah Kyvrikosaios; enhancing by John Stonestreet
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