Greeks prepare first Acropolis move in 2,500 years

ATHENS (Reuters Life!) - Dozens of Greek archaeologists and engineers stood atop the Acropolis watching three cranes slowly relay a massive test marble slab ahead of moving day for some of the ancient world's greatest treasures.

The cranes have been put in place to transport hundreds of antiquities related to the Parthenon, and currently crammed into a small 130-year-old museum atop the Acropolis, to a new museum at the foot of the hill.

The new museum is set to open in early 2008 and it will take the cranes two and a half hours to transfer each object, some weighing about 2.5 tonnes, in steel boxes the 400 meters (yards) to their new home. The move is expected to last six weeks.

"This will be their first move from their home in 2,500 years," Culture Minister Michael Liapis told reporters. "This is a unique attempt even for international standards."

Greece has taken out a 400 million euro ($568.6 million) insurance policy for this move.

Space has also been reserved for the Parthenon Marbles, now displayed at the British Museum in London and known widely as the Elgin Marbles after the British aristocrat who removed them in the early 19th century when Greece was under Ottoman rule.

"We wanted to show what is missing," said Dimitris Pandermalis, head of the state body overseeing the museum's construction. "We wanted to make it dramatically clear they are not here."

Greece hopes the new museum will give impetus to its fight to get the Classical Age treasures back.

Athens has long demanded their repatriation and the third floor of the new steel-glass museum will be reserved for the Parthenon marbles.