Greek archaeologists appealed to
Europeans to help defend the nation’s cultural heritage and
history amid cuts in the budget to maintain sites that include
those around the 2,500 year-old Acropolis in Athens.
“The same austerity packages and authoritarian measures
that are currently tearing apart Greece and its monuments, are
going to be imposed across Europe,” the Association of Greek
Archaeologists said in an e-mailed statement today.
The budget of the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s
archaeological service was reduced by 35 percent, to 12 million
euros ($16 million) in 2011 and will be cut further this year,
the group said in the statement. The ministry’s total budget has
been cut by 20 percent since 2010.
The government undertook to impose more austerity measures
last month to secure a second 130 billion-euro aid package from
the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.
The 7,000 ministry employees, including 950 archaeologists
and 2,000 guards, are responsible for 19,250 archaeological
sites and monuments; 106 museums and collections of prehistoric,
classical and Byzantine antiquities; 366 projects and hundreds
of excavations. They have a budget of 498 million euros that the
EU co-finances, according to the statement.
‘We Are Not Overpaid’
“We are not overstaffed, nor are we being overpaid,” the
group said. A new hire earns 670 euros a month after tax and
other contributions, compared with 880 euros a month in 2009.
Receipts from visits to museums and archaeological sites
rose 4.6 percent to 47.3 million euros in the first 11 months of
2011, the Hellenic Statistical Authority said on March 8.
Funding for museum security will be cut 20 percent, the
archaeologists said. This comes after two big robberies in
January and February, one at the Archaeological Museum of
Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games, the other at the
National Gallery of Art in central Athens. Three paintings were
stolen from the gallery, including one donated by Pablo Picasso. Source
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