An ancient Athenian returns to town, Myrtis. Face to Face with the Past.
The face of an 11-year-old girl who died in ancient Greece has been painstakingly reconstructed, and highlights a spectacular exhibition at the Goulandri Museum of Natural History. "Myrtis" is believed to have been one of the 50,000 people who died in the lethal plague that struck Athens during the Peloponnesian War.
A spectacular exhibition which presents step by step the reconstruction of the face of an 11-year old child who lived under the Acropolis 2.500 years ago opened in Athens [last week].
Hundreds of people gathered at the Goulandri Museum of Natural History to see "Myrtis," as Greek scientists named the girl who lived and died when the Parthenon was being built, and come "face to face with the past" as the exhibition is titled.
She has brown eyes and hair, like most Greek girls also in the 21st century, a wide forehead made of special clay and a faint smile. Her robe, created by Greek fashion designer Sophia Kokosalaki, is inspired by sculptures of children of that era in Athens.
Myrtis is believed to have been one of the 50,000 people who died in the lethal plague that struck Athens during the Peloponnesian War in 430 B.C., which represented the 25 percent of the city's population at the time.
She was buried in a mass grave in Keramikos' cemetery which was unearthed during excavations for the construction of the subway in 1994. Her skull in excellent condition bearing all its teeth and intact jaws inspired Manolis Papagrigorakis, Assistant Professor at the University of Athens, an orthodontist with great passion for archaeology, the idea of the reconstruction of her face, as he explained to Xinhua.
"Fifteen years ago I could not have imagined that the moment was near when the face of an ancient child would come to light," stressed Papagrigorakis, head of a interdisciplinary team and coordinator of the traveling exhibition which will be presented to a series of cities across Greece and abroad and most probably Shanghai during the Expo 2010.
With the help of modern technology and experts from Greece and Sweden, after years of research Myrtis was "reborn." Special markers or pegs were placed in various points of the replicated skull and served as guidelines, defining the thickness of the clay that would be applied to each part. Dozens of muscles were sculpted with special clay. The size and width of the nose were made in accordance to the shape of the nasal bone.
Using the latest trends of museological practice and digital tools curator Haris Chaitas and a team of people on his side, as he stressed to Xinhua, simplified the complex scientific survey process of the reconstruction of her face and the breathtaking result, aiming at the active presence of the visitor at the exhibition.
"In the dark moments humanity lives today, Myrtis reminds the world the values of ancient Athens, the cradle of democracy," as founder of the Goulandri Museum of National History Niki Goulandri said during her address at the opening gala.
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Η έκθεση «Μύρτις, πρόσωπο με πρόσωπο με το παρελθόν» παρουσιάζει τη διεπιστημονική συμβολή για την ανασύσταση όψεων της αρχαιότητας. Aφορμή της έκθεσης, αποτέλεσε η ανάπλαση του κρανίου ενός κοριτσιού 11 ετών, της Μύρτιδος, που βρέθηκε σε ομαδική ταφή σε ανασκαφή στον Κεραμεικό το 1994-5, και το οποίο χρονολογείται στον 5ο αιώνα π.Χ. Για μια πιο ολοκληρωμένη προσέγγιση των περιεχομένων της έκθεσης προτείνουμε να παρακολουθήσετε το podcast. Περιλαμβάνει το trailer της έκθεσης καθώς και συνεντεύξεις από τους επιστήμονες που συμμετείχαν στη διεπιστημονική διαδικασία.
