Culture Min Lina Mendoni inaugurates renovated theater at Dion

Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni concluded a two-day tour of the regional unit of Pieria in Central Macedonia on Thursday.

Accompanied by Deputy Development Minister Anna Mani-Papadimitriou, Mendoni met with Katerini Mayor Yiannis Doumos at the Town Hall to discuss the plans for the Cultural Center of Katerini. She suggested that the building accomodate more than cultural events, such as conferences, which interest the region a lot.

They then visited the archaeological site of Tombs A & B in Katerini, which are being conserved and restored and the surrounding space landscaped, under the NSRF 2021-2027 funding and at a cost of 755,000 euros. The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2024. The Tombs are off the Katerini-Thessaloniki highway and are dated to the second quarter of the 4th century BC and the last quarter of the same century, respectively.

Latest antiquities trend

Mendoni paid a visit also to the Museum Storage of Makrygialos Pierias, where she was welcomed by Pydna-Kolindros Mayor Christos Kobatsiaris. She said, "When we started to found the Museum Storage, our intention was not to belittle the region by creating a storage instead of a museum. Today, international bibliography records and our experience also proves that this is what visitors to an area want. It is not about seeing antiquities in the typical museum form. What interests them a lot more is to see the process that cultural goods undergo: from the washing, when they come out of the earth, their conservation, to how they are placed in the storage areas, their documentation, to their exhibition in glass cases. This process of perception by the visitor is the modern museum trend. This, therefore, happened here too so that the region is a pioneer in it."

She also said that a long-standing request by residents of Pieria to have antiquities from Pieria return from the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki to the Museum Storage of Makrygialos will be fulfilled shortly. The Thessaloniki Museum, she said, would also set up a permanent exhibition with antiquities from Makrygialos as the Metropolitan Archaeological Museum of Northern Greece, so that visitors get a complete picture of the region.

The Ministry of Culture is implementing a program for the region of Pieria that exceeds 6 million euros for cultural infrastructure, funded by the NSRF for Central Macedonia and the Recovery Fund, she further noted.

Hellenistic theater of Dion

On Wednesday, Mendoni inaugurated the renovated Hellenistic-era theater at Dion, and opened the 53rd Mt Olympus Festival.

The renovated theater has wooden seats, modern lighting and electrical wiring, and provides access and seating to people with handicaps.

The project was funded with 171,000 euros from the Recovery Fund and the National Investments Program, under the supervision of the Antiquities Ephorate of Pieria. It also included renovations to the building housing the visitors center, the public restrooms, a coffee shop, and a sales office for the archaeological site of Dion, upgrading services to vistors. The latter is completed and cost 447,000 euros.

Additional works to prevent flooding will be necessary, Mendoni said, following the climate crisis. "From antiquity, Dion was a space directly connected to water. But now the strong weather phenomena demand we take additional measures, and we are doing this at the Culture Ministry, with a large antiflooding project that is funded with 2,250,000 euros by the Recovery Fund and will begin very soon."

Wrapping up her address at the site, Mendoni paid tribute to the late archaeologist and Acropolis Museum director Dimitris Pantermalis, to whom the renovated museum at Dion will be dedicated. She described him as being absolutely committed to whatever he undertook, whether teaching at the university, following the building of the new Acropolis Museum, carrying out excavations or working to highlight the significance of Dion. "It is very hard to find someone like Dimitris, people so devoted, who love their profession, and yet truly love local communities as well."