The culture ministry on Wednesday held an event in honour of six departing directors of foreign schools and institutes in Athens, who will soon be leaving Greece.

The event, during which Culture Minister George Voulgarakis and ministry general secretary Christos Zachopoulos presented commemorative plaques to the departing heads of the U.S., British and Swiss archaeological schools and the heads of the Norwegian, Dutch and Finnish Institutes in Athens, took place in the Stoa of Attalos in the Athenian Agora.

According to Voulgarakis, the work of the six institutes had left its stamp on research and archaeological excavations throughout Greece since the middle of the 19th century, when the French Archaeological School first opened.

The director of the Swiss School Pierre Ducrey was the longest serving of the six directors, having first arrived in Greece in 1982, while Victor Tracy of the U.S. school and James Whitley of the British school both arrived in 2002.

The departing head of the Dutch Institute Getr Jan Winjgaarden took over in 2001, the Norwegian institute director Knut Odegard in 2003 and the head of the newest of the institutes, the Finnish institute established in 1985, had taken over in 2004.

Source: Athens News Agency

^
top

print this page   send this page