Edonis

A 53-year-old man has appeared before a prosecutor in the northern city of Kavala on suspicion of conducting an illegal excavation at the archaeological site of Philippi.

Police said the man, equipped with a metal detector, earphones, a small carving tool and an improvised digging tool, conducted the illegal dig on the site on Wednesday evening.

The wetland of the river Nestos in Eastern Macedonia, which is adjacent to the offshore hydrocarbon production platforms of Prinos of Kavala and the land processing and storage facilities of Nea Karvali, proves to be free of hydrocarbons.

Archaeologists and historians are lamenting the destruction of several 3,000-year-old rock carvings on the Pangaion Hills near Kavala in northern Greece and calling for measures to protect the remaining samples of this ancient art.

The Amphipolis Tomb, a massive burial mound complex dating to the era of Alexander the Great near the ancient city of Amphipolis in Greece's northern Macedonia region, will be opened to the public in 2020, the country's culture minister has said.

“Amphipolis and all the important Greek monuments is our priority”, said Culture Minister Lydia Koniordou on Wednesday in a meeting with Central Macedonia regional governor Apostolos Tzitzikostas.

The candidature of the ancient site of Philippi in eastern Macedonia, northern Greece, for UNESCO's World Heritage List was revealed at the B&M Theocharakis Foundation in Athens on Monday.

The international organization's list includes 17 Greek sites, among them the Acropolis of Athens. The country's last entry to the list was the Old Town of Corfu.