Row Over Plans To Move Greek Antiquities From Construction Site

Thessaloniki, Greece, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Oct, 2019 ) :Opposition politicians, archaeologists and locals have denounced Greek government plans to displace the fragile remnants of an ancient city district unearthed during work on a subway tunnel in Thessaloniki.

Experts say the early Byzantine site, which includes the city's main 6th-century highway, ancient buildings and hundreds of thousands of artefacts, is priceless.

But the government and the company managing the subway project in Greece's second largest city say the work, already behind schedule because of the find, has to get back on track.

The plan is to move the ancient remains to a museum, to be built at a later date, reversing an earlier plan by the previous left-wing administration to put them on show where they were found.

The conservative government's new plan has outraged many in Greece's second largest city.

"You won't be able to find an archaeologist willing to degrade these antiquities," Despina Koutsoumba, spokeswoman for the Association of Greek Archaeologists, told the city council at a recent meeting.

Archaeologists warn that the only way to remove the 700 tonnes of finds will be to break them up into at least 100 pieces, causing irreparable damage.