A prominent showcase entitled "New entries / new approaches" welcomes visitors to the museum's reception area.

It introduces them to some of our collection's most interesting new and old objects; we present items recently acquired or storeroom objects after a new approach, such as a restoration process, a new interpretation or new scientific data.

The latest research based on the archival material of older excavations has identified marble sculptures and other movable finds of unknown, until recently, origin correlating them with the sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in Lete (site of "Derveni" at Thessaloniki).

The sanctuary in Lete

Material remains dating back to the Neolithic Age have been discovered in the area of Lete. Inhistorical times the city of ancient Lete was founded as part of Mygdonia, a very important Macedonian region. It extends to the hills and the plain immediately after the exit from the straits of Derveni with a settlement and a cemetery of Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic times. A small part of the city wall is dated the era of Cassander (316-297 BC.) The worship of Demeter and Kore began in the Late Archaic period in an open-air sanctuary. The first monumental phase is dated to the early Hellenistic times, while the construction of the two temples in the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Marble statues prove their worship, as well as that of other deities, such as the Mother of the Gods, Aphrodite and Artemis, daughter of Leto, from whom the theophoric name of the city originates. They are products of a local sculpture workshop that should have been in the city of Lete of the Hellenistic times.

Short guided tours at "New acquisitions / new approaches" will be regularly held by the Archaeologists of the museum.