Exhibit on ancient Greek science and technology travels to the Library of Alexandria

Many people sit on chairs in a theatre and watch the speech of the man on the podium

Photo credit: Bibliotheca Alexandrina

A major traveling exhibition that highlights technical achievements from the ancient Greek world is on now at the new Library of Alexandria in Egypt. The exhibition, produced by the Thessaloniki Science Center and Technology Museum (NOESIS) and supported by a grant from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), presents the evolution of Greek thought in a range of then nascent scientific, technological, and artistic fields.

The exhibition, “IDEA - Ancient Greek Science and Technology,” is on display in the remarkable space of the new Library of Alexandria from the beginning of October 2021 through the beginning of January 2022. The public can visit the exhibition for free.

Created in 2016, the exhibition lived at NOESIS in Thessaloniki for a year, then, from March to December 2018, was shown at the Foundation of the Hellenic World’s Hellenic Cosmos in Athens. Most recently, from June 2019 to August 2020, it was displayed at the Cultural and Congress Center Cankarjev Com in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The exhibition’s fresh presentation, employing new digital media, invites visitors of all stripes, but especially young people and school groups, to challenge what they think they know about ancient Greek science and technology. From readily comprehensible and entertaining material, visitors of all ages can learn about 2,000- to 3,000-year-old technological achievements and about scientific fields that provided solutions to people’s everyday problems and needs in antiquity—and continue to do so today.

Holograms, 3D animations, narratives of ancient lives, sounds, scale models, reconstructions of ancient technologies, and more paint a multidimensional picture of the ancient world.

Take a virtual tour of the exhibition as displayed at NOESIS or watch a preview video.