| The Archaeological Museum
on Andros was inaugurated in 1981. This museum with its simple architecture
was equipped according to the latest museum standards. It was constructed
and outfitted at the expense of the Basil and Elise Goulandris Foundation,
in order to house the finds of the excavation at Zagora on Andros,
carried out by professors Nikos Zafiropoulos, Nikolaos Kontoleon and
Alexander Cambitoglou. Additional exhibits of the museum are antiquities
dating from the Mycenaean to later eras, most popular of which, the
Hermes of Andros, was repatriated from the National Archaeological
Museum in Athens once the new museum was completed.
The rare finds of archaic, classical, hellenistic and roman periods,
as well as some early-Christian and Byzantine pieces are presented
in historical sequence and are accompanied by explicative texts
and a range of additional material like photographs, casts and models.
After the construction of the Archaeological Museum was completed,
it was donated to the Greek state, which is since then responsible
for the Museum’s operation.
In the museum’s atrium stand the busts of Basil and Elise Goulandris
in honour and memory of the two founders. The unveiling of Basil
P. Goulandris’ bust, a work by Yiorgos Nikolaidis donated by the
Andriot Scientists Society, took place in the summer of 1999. In
June 2002, the bust of Elise Goulandris, a work by Praxitelis Tzanoulinos,
was placed next to her husband’s on the initiative and expenses
of the Municipality of Andros. Architect Dora Papadimitriou designed
and undertook the installation of the pedestals and the harmonisation
of the two busts.
|
