Closed in stages from 2017, the Théra archeology museum, on the island of Santorini in Greece, reopened on June 13, 2025 after eight years of work. The renovation focused on building building, upgrading to energy standards, as well as its compliance in terms of safety and accessibility, the restoration of soil mosaic and the improvement of conservation conditions. The courses have been redesigned to cope with the increase in attendance linked to the tourist attraction of Santorini. The site was funded up to € 750,000 by the Greek ministry for culture and sports.
The current building, designed between 1960 and 1962 by the architect Konstantinos Dekavallas, replaces the 1902 museum destroyed by the earthquake of 1956. It houses the discoveries of the old Thera, Akrotiri and the rock of Christiana: sculptures and inscriptions of the archaic era during the Roman period, vases and figurines in clay covering the period geometric with Hellenistic.
For the reopening, the inaugural exhibition “Kykladitians: unknown stories of cyclades’ women” presents some 200 objects retracing the lives of women in the region, from the Neolithic to the 19th century, in collaboration with the Cycladic Museum of Athens and the Ministry. It makes it possible to reveal, for the first time within these walls, the Koré de Théra, a statue of 2.48 m in marble of Naxos, dated from the 7th century BC. AD, remarkably well preserved.
