The shipwreck, named after the southern Greek island off the Peloponnese, was discovered over a century ago. It yielded bronze statues and what is considered to be the world’s earliest computing mechanism. All objects date between the 4th and 1st centuries BC.

Culture and Sports Minister Panos Panagiotopoulos met with the National Gallery’s director recently to agree on the exhibition, which is hoped to be the first after the renovation of part of the museum.

The National Gallery recently hosted the “Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections” exhibition, in collaboration with Ministry of Culture and Benaki Museum. It is currently presented at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles until August 25. Mr Panagiotopoulos said that a section of this exhibition will be then shown at Chicago’s Art Institute until the end of the year.

Ottawa will host the exhibition “The Greeks: From Agamemnon to Alexander the Great” as of December 14. In June 2015 it will travel to Montreal, in December 2015 to Chicago’s Field Museum and in spring 2016 will be shown at National Geographic Museum in Washington, DC.

“Cultural extroversion is a basic pillar of our policy” Mr Panagiotopoulos said, “because it builds Greece’s public image anew, internationally. It shows up our cultural heritage and our national rights, responding to ridiculous, unhistorically proven propaganda, such as that used by Skopje. It also attracts visitors from throughout the world.”