The Museum of Ancient Greek Technology, Kostas Kotsanas, in Athens, was nominated as the European Museum of the Year 2019 by the European Museum Forum (EMF).
The award goes to a museum which contributes most directly to attracting audiences and satisfying its visitors with unique atmosphere, imaginative interpretation, and presentation, a creative approach to education and social responsibility. Past winners have been both large and small museums, but all developed something which was special and changed the standards of quality in museums within Europe.
The Museum of Ancient Greek Technology Kostas Kotsanas, highlights and presents to the public an extremely important, but relatively unknown aspect of ancient Greek civilisation: technology.
With more than 150 functioning interactive dummies and reconstructions of ancient Greek inventions, broken down into 24 thematic units, children and adults are brought into contact with the wonderful creations that ancient Greek technology has handed down to mankind. The aim of the Museum is to explain that ancient Greek technology was similar to the beginnings of modern technology and to demonstrate its importance to contemporary Technological Culture.
It should be noted that the Kostas Kotsanas Museum, a model museum both in Greece and abroad, is a non-profit organisation that has been operating from the outset without any subsidies from any public or private organisations.
The Museum showcases:
– “Ancient Greece – the beginnings of the Technologies” which presents more than 100 interactive exhibits
– The exhibition “Ancient Greek Musical Instruments and Games” with 42 fully functional musical instruments.
Soon the traveling exhibition entitled “EVRIKA – think like Archimedes”, with interactive exhibits devoted to the greatest mathematical and inventor will open.
The European Museum of the Year Award (EMYA) was founded in 1977 under the auspices of the Council of Europe, with the aim of recognising excellence in the European museum scene and encouraging innovative processes in a museum world which still took the more traditional view to focus exclusively on collections rather than on their use for the benefit of society.
The nominees are invited to join the Award Ceremony in Springtime where the winners will be announced at the Grand Awards Presentation Event.
Source: en.protothema.gr