Archaeological sites · Thessaloniki

Agias Sofias metro station

Σταθμός Αγίας Σοφίας

Thessaloniki Metro station

  • TypeArchaeological sites
  • WhereThessaloniki, Greece
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Photo: Own work · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

About

About Agias Sofias metro station

Agias Sofias metro station (Greek: Αγίας Σοφίας,, lit. 'Holy Wisdom') is a metro station serving Thessaloniki Metro's Line 1 and Line 2. The station is named after the church of Hagia Sophia, located nearby. It entered service in 2024.

Construction of this station had been held back by major archaeological finds, and it is designated as a high-importance archaeological site by Attiko Metro, the company overseeing its construction.

Here, as well as at Venizelou, Roman Thessaloniki's marble-clad and column-lined Decumanus Maximus (main east–west avenue), along with shops and houses, was found running along the route of the Via Egnatia (modern Egnatia Street) at 5.4 metres (18 ft) below ground level. Additionally, a public square was also found at this station. The discovery was so major that it delayed the entire Metro project for years.

A historian dubbed the discovery "the Byzantine Pompeii". Agias Sofias station features a mini museum within the station, similar to those of Athens Metro stations like Syntagma, which houses the Syntagma Metro Station Archaeological Collection. Unlike Venizelou, however, the archaeological finds is not kept in situ; they were disassembled and reassembled elsewhere.

The station also appears in the 1988 Thessaloniki Metro proposal.

Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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