The National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greecepresents the exhibition “Myrtis: Face to face with the past,” which will run from 13 September to 30 November. It is the presentation of an important interdisciplinary achievement. The central exhibit is the reconstructed face of the anonymous 11-year-old Athenian girl who, along with the great Pericles, was one of tens of thousands of victims of typhoid fever in 430 BC.
The exhibit is being staged with the generous support of dentist-orthodontist and Assistant Professor Manolis Papagrigorakis, along with the University of Athens, in collaboration with the National Archaeological Museum. The exhibition was recently presented at the Goulandris Natural History Museum.
The National Archaeological Museum is the ideal location for Myrtis. For the museum, which exhibits numerous funerary sculptures and reliefs, welcoming her symbolises a contemporary “reception.” It resembles a metaphysical meeting between Myrtis and the boys and girls in the museum, such as Aristili, Mnisagora, Dikaios or Nikocharis, who are depicted on the funerary stelae. Monuments and memorials of the 5th century BC, both of well-known and anonymous individuals, come alive and converse with us through young Myrtis. They remind us of the fate shared by all humans – death – but also of the victory over death through memory. It is no coincidence that Myrtis was declared a “Friend of the Millennium Development Goals” by the United Nations.
History in brief
In 1994-95 excavations in the region of Kerameikos, on the occasion of the construction of the Athens Metro, revealed an ancient mass grave containing skeletal remains of around 150 people (men, women and children).
The findings of the mass burial (the disordered and hasty burial and the dating of the few funerary gifts) led the archaeologists to the conclusion that it contained victims of the plague that struck Athens in 430 B.C.
The study of this skeletal material with modern laboratorial methods of DNA analysis aimed to the identification of the causative factor of the deadly plague. The dental-medical research team used as study material the pulp of three intact teeth, from three randomly selected skulls, in which traces of the microbial factor were located. Scientists identified the bacterium Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi.
Among the bones was the skull of an 11 year-old girl, Myrtis, as she was called by the archaeologists. The excellent condition of the skull prompted the orthodontic research team to reconstruct the face. For this purpose, a replica of the skull was manufactured with the most modern scientific methods and it travelled from Greece to a laboratory in Sweden, where, with special reconstruction techniques, it took form and became the person we see today.
After 2,500 years, Myrtis “comes back to life”.
Don’t miss this interesting exhibition, “Myrtis: Face to face with the past“, at the National Archaeological Museum inAthens, Greece.
