Thessaloniki: Antiquities are being relocated at Venizelos station
The are reset antiquitieswhich were revealed to Venizelos Station in the framework of the construction of the Metropolitan Railway Thessalonikiand which were temporarily detached, in order to be placed back in the same position, at level -1.
The Central Archaeological Council approved the studies of protection, fixing, restoration, maintenance of surfaces and highlights. of the Station’s shell during the first and second phases of the excavation research.
The studies must be brought to the attention of the Ministry of Culture and Sports within the first new year and in April 2023 the relocation of the antiquities will begin. At the same time, the maintenance work will progress, so that according to the schedule, the Station will be delivered at the end of 2023. With the repositioning of the specific remains, which constitutes a single whole with completeness and continuity, the further preservation of the evidence of the urban organization and the historical urban fabric of the city in this specific location is ensured.
As stated by the Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni, “In the context of the construction of the Metropolitan Railway of Thessaloniki, the largest excavation survey of an urban nature that has never been carried out in Thessaloniki, but also in our country, was carried out, and it contributes to the discovery and documentation of the history of the city from its foundation to the beginning of. 20th century. At Venizelos Station, the largest archaeological site is being created as part of an international technical project. The work of the temporary detachment of the antiquities made it possible to reveal the previous historical periods, which could not be studied in any other way and to such an extent.
With the interdisciplinary studies approved by the Central Archaeological Council, all of the detached antiquities are returned to their original position and displayed within the shell of the Venizelos Station. In this way, faithfully following the archaeological law and the internationally accepted scientific ethics, we rescue, protect the material existence of the antiquities and restore the image of the area before the detachment. The Ministry of Culture and Sports, from its competent services, has been working systematically for three years coordinating a wide interdisciplinary team for the completion of an unprecedented complex and complex archaeological project. Congratulations to all of them. By carrying out a complex and large-scale archaeological project under inflexible schedules, imposed by the commitments of a public engineering project of such scope, we show in practice our respect for the city’s past by proving that the Ancient and the Metro can coexist. In 2023, the people of Thessaloniki will be able to be proud of having a state-of-the-art Metro, with station-museums that will showcase the living connection of their city with its present and its past.”
The history of excavation investigation
The route of the Thessaloniki Metro crosses the historic center of the city and areas with a rich cultural past. Archaeological research and work began in April 2006 at the same time as the technical work. Gradually, from 2008 to 2014, the main excavation survey was carried out in the area, where the shells and entrances of the stations were being built, and was completed in the period 2016-2019, with the exception of Venizelos Station, where the excavation survey was completed on July 221.
Venizelos Station is divided at the intersection of modern Egnatia and Venizelos streets, in the heart of the Byzantine metropolis. The archaeological site that was uncovered during the excavation works is a timeless testimony of the urban organization of the city that has remained unchanged for 17 centuries, as reflected in the height of the main road that has always run through the city in approximately the same pattern: The Hellenistic road, the decumanus maximus of the Roman era and late antiquity, the Byzantine Avenue or Middle Street, the Fardys Dromos of the post-Byzantine period, the current Egnatia Street.
During the first phase of the excavation investigation, a part of the secular city of late antiquity and Byzantine times was revealed with impressive completeness. It is the intersection of decumanus maximus and cardo (Venizelou Street), 6m. approximately lower than today’s junction. The importance and uniqueness of the find as a whole, i.e. as a digested part of the urban fabric of Byzantine Thessaloniki, was already recognized in 2013, when the issue of the construction of the Station was raised for the first time in the Central Archaeological Council, with the detachment of the archaeological catalogs and the transporting them. for exposure in another location. The design stood out in 2017, although in 2016, the CoE had decided on the legality of the ministerial decisions of the period 2013-2014, when the SYRIZA government decided to build the station with the country-specific stay of the antiquities. The fact that for a period of five years absolutely nothing has progressed, proves the impossibility of implementing the previous government’s plan. In 2019, the Central Archaeological Council was in favor of the detachment and relocation to the Venizelos Station, weighing the importance of the antiquities in relation to the necessity of the construction of the project being carried out, which exceeds the wider public interest. The detachment work of the 96 units started, according to the approved study, on 13.08.2021.
During the second phase of the excavation investigation, a number of remains were revealed, which related on the one hand to a dense network of hydraulic infrastructures under the decks of the decumanus maximus and cardo, on the other hand to a densely built web with superimposed phases on the building islets southeast of the islands. The new findings covered a time horizon from the 3rd to the 5th/6th century. A.D. In 2022, the Central Archaeological Council gave a unanimous opinion in favor of preserving the ancient remains uncovered up to +3.50m altitude. during the 2nd phase of excavation investigation with their temporary detachment and repositioning as a single whole with the antiquities detached in the 1st phase (4th-9th century AD), as they complete the picture of the urban history of the city in the expansion of the two streets . demonstrating the sequence of residential phases. In parallel with the removal of the antiquities (phase 2), the excavation research continued (phase 3 and 4) from an altitude of +3.50 m. up to the +2.00m level. The Central Archaeological Council has given an opinion in favor of the detachment of the remains, which constitute a single whole with completeness and continuity, in order to be transported and exhibited as a whole in the Crossover Museum at Fountain Station.