Lonely Planet tourist guide, which has put Albania as the top destination to visit in 2011, describes the Archaeological Museum situated on the waterfront as well laid out with an impressive collection of artefacts from the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman periods
Tirana Times
TIRANA, July 19 – The archeological museum of Durres, a testimony to the ancient city’s 3000-year-old history, will be fully reconstructed under a 100 million lek (USD 1 million) fund in autumn 2012 just before Albania celebrates its 100th anniversary of independence.
Reconstruction works kicked off on Tuesday in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Sali Berisha who described the museum as one of the most important for Albania’s cultural heritage.The reconstru-ction will make possible the improvement of the building’s architecture and its exhibition spaces. A library and conference hall will also be made available in the new museum premises.
“Today we receive more than three million tourists from all over the world and this is a great reason to do everything to make their vacations better,” said Berisha.
The Prime Minister said this year’s 20 million dollar budget made available for the Culture and Tourism Ministry to carry out excavations, restorations was the biggest in Albania’s history.Ermion Arapi, the head of the regional Cultural Monuments Directorate says the reconstruction will also include objects which are on display in the museum’s front garden, apart from inner works in the three-storey cubist architecture museum building.
“Some 2,100 objects belonging to the period before the foundation of the city until the fourth century are found in the museum’s first floor,” said Arapi.
Lonely Planet tourist guide, which has put Albania as the top destination to visit in 2011, describes the Archaeological Museum situated on the waterfront as well laid out with an impressive collection of artefacts from the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman periods. Highlights include engraved Roman funeral stelae (memorial stones) and some big carved stone sarcophagi. Back in the day when the city was called Epidamnos, Durr쳠was a centre for the worship of Venus, and the museum has a cabinet bursting with little busts of the love goddess.
Inaugurated in 1953 during the communist regime, the current museum opened in 2001. Along with the ancient Durres Amphitheatre, the archeological museum is on top of the agenda of visitors who come to see the ancient site which boasts a rich cultural heritage.
