The Column of the Kalindoes 334-304 BCE

(April 5, 2024. This is a google translation of the text on the museum's website.)

The history of the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki traces the course of the modern history of the city. The Ephorate of Antiquities "under the General Administration of Macedonia" was the first service to be established in November 1912, just fifteen days after the signing of the surrender of the city to the Greek State. Until 1925, the place of collection of the antiquities of Macedonia was the Government House (today's building of the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace), as well as the Ottoman School of Idadie, the building that housed the Faculty of Philosophy of the Aristotle University. During the First World War, antiquities from the French Army of the East (Armee Francaise d' Orient) were collected initially in Karabournaki and then in the Rotunda, while the findings from the British research were concentrated in the White Tower.

In 1925 the Yeni Mosque, the newest mosque in the Dönmeh, of the former Turkish-occupied Thessaloniki, was granted to the Archaeological Service. The Yeni Mosque will be the first museum of the city, as indicated by the inscription left on its frontispiece. In 1940 many antiquities, mainly sculptures, were buried in trenches in order to save them from the tornado of World War II. The antiquities were unearthed in 1951 and exhibited for the first time in the central hall of the Archaeological Museum (Yeni Tzami) in 1953.

In 1950 a large plot of land was granted in a central part of Thessaloniki, at the YMCA Square in the immediate vicinity of the large area where the International Exhibition was organized. The design of the new museum was entrusted to the eminent Greek architect Patroklos Karantinos, an important representative of modernism in Greece.

The new museum was inaugurated in 1962 with all formality, along with the celebrations for the fifty years since the liberation of Thessaloniki, with an exhibition of the impressive findings of the tombs of Derveni that had been discovered in the same year. Subsequently, a sculpture exhibition was organized, from the archaic to the Roman times, by George Despinis, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

The brilliant findings of the professor Manolis Andronikos from the excavation of the basilican altars in Virgina, which were transferred for safekeeping and preservation to the museum immediately after their discovery, forced the organization of a new way of exhibition and demonstrated the need for a building extension. In 1982, a new exhibition was organized, which was organized by Σίνδο. The reconstruction and the exhibition were carried out with the supervision and supervision of the ancient archeology of Aikaterini. In 1985, the 2,300th anniversary of the founding of Thessaloniki, by Cassandra in 315 BC, the first major exhibition dedicated to the history and archeology of the city, under the supervision of the then director of the Museum of Ioulias Vokotopoulou

In 1996, the first extensive exhibition of prehistoric Macedonia took place in the basement space below the exhibition of Virgin Mary, in the new building of the Virgin Mary in 1980, under the supervision of the then director of the Museum of Dimitri Grammenou and the editorship of the archeologist Maria Papa. In 1998, after the transfer of the remains of the angels from the Museum to Virgin and their exhibition in the museum building that restored the great burial vault of the basilica, an exhibition was organized in the Museum on the theme of "Chrysos of the Macedonians", under the supervision of then the director of Δημήτρη Gramménou and the editor of the archeologists Mbetina Tsigarida and Δεσποινα Ιγνατιαδου, in order to fill the "vacuum" left in the public's attention by the lack of impressive basilicas and archeology of the city, with the editor of the then director of the Museum of Ioulias Vokotopoulos.

In 2002, with the relevant Presidential Decree (to 164/2002), the Archáiologík Museum of Thessaloniki became an independent regional unit of the Ministry of Politics. The urgent need for renovation of the building of Karaðinou and of Bogiatze and the modern museological imperatives led to the decision of a radical overhaul of the Museum in the dawn of the 21st century. Since 2004, the Museum has been operating with new permanent exhibitions... After a four-year hiatus from the official opening of the now renovated Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, with five new thematic exhibitions, under the supervision of Δ. Gramménou kai megulu épiteleiou of many specialties, they were made in September 2006.

After a long period of work necessary for the reorganization of the exhibition, storage, maintenance and administration spaces, the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki opened its doors to the public in September 2006. In the preceding period, apart from the building expansion, the most important and the essential part of our approach: it was designed and realized the re-use of the Museum's collections in a way that covers the needs of the modern visitor.

Our intention was to illuminate the aspects of the culture that developed in Macedonia, especially in the region of Thessaloniki and the nearby provinces, for a long period of time: from the dawn of the ancient world to the earliest antiquity, that is, the first Christian centuries.

Reference

http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/1/gh152.jsp?obj_id=3332