ACROPOLIS MUSEUM EXCAVATION UNEARTHS TREASURE TROVE

Relics ranging from a near-perfectly preserved marble bust of Aristotle to cooking utensils, children’s games, and figurines of little-known deities are among the more than fifty thousand pieces unearthed during excavations to build the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, reports Helena Smith for The Guardian. “Thanks to the New Acropolis Museum, we were able to conduct the biggest-ever dig within the walls of Athens’s ancient city,” archaeologist Stamatia Eleftheratou said. The £94 million ($183.3 million) three-story museum, designed by the Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi to house the fifth-century-BC Parthenon marbles, is by far the most significant edifice erected so close to the Acropolis. “We learned that through all these periods, the inhabitants of this historic area were rich people with the economic means to lead comfortable lives,” Eleftheratou added.