White marble statues of Aphrodite (Greek goddess of love and beauty), Eros (god of love) and Serapis, (Graeco-Egyptian sun deity) are among the thousands of artefacts housed at Alexandria’s Graeco-Roman Museum, which, after 17 years of restoration is due to open soon.
“The restoration work is scheduled for completion by the end of June,” Supreme Council of Antiquities Secretary General Mostafa Waziry said during his inspection tour.
“It is the only museum specialised in the Greco-Roman civilisation and will display, for the first time, artefacts from the sunken antiquities from Abu Qir,” he added.
The restoration work involved the expansion of display space, reinforcing the walls, and a facelift for the museum’s classic façade.
First opened by Khedive Abbas Helmy in 1895, the museum is now home to 41,000 artefacts of which some are on display for the first time since they were retrieved from underwater off the coast. The museum is fully wheelchair accessible.
Earlier this month, Alexandria celebrated the re-opening of the Shatby necropolis, the last resting place of the first generation of Macedonian and Greek officials who made the coastal city the capital of Egypt under the Ptolemies and the Romans.
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