Acropolis Museum celebrates its fifth birthday

By Iota Sykka

Few other cultural institutions in Greece evoke so much excitement as the Acropolis Museum. Youngsters whisper to each other as they gaze at the stunning video that was screened on the walls of adjacent apartment buildings for the grand opening in 2009. Parents get choked up as they see how the metopes were transported from the Parthenon to their new home and everyone is enthralled by the process of cleaning the statuesque Caryatides of centuries of dirt. The museum’s conservationists reveal all the details on these wonderful female figures, showing the public that, contrary to popular belief, the ancient Greek world was not all white, but bathed in color.

The Acropolis Museum is constantly abuzz with visitors, from the gift shops – top sellers are the excellent museum guide and souvenirs – to the restaurant about which so much has been written.

It’s been five years since the Acropolis Museum opened its doors and to date it has received more than 6.5 million visitors, says its president Dimitris Pantermalis, conceding that it saw a small slump in numbers in 2012-13 but is now back up to an average of 4,000 a day. The museum operates with a staff of 200 and is bankrolled without government funding but only from the revenues from ticket sales, the gift shops and the restaurant, says Pantermalis, adding that the museum’s annual operating costs are 7 million euros, just enough to keep it going.

Some plans have been put on the back burner due to a lack of additional funds after its reserves were trimmed by some 3 million euros, but Pantermalis insists on keeping prices where they are, especially at the restaurant, which has extremely reasonable prices considering its location.

“The museum was built...