The City Beneath the City

Published in conjunction with the exhibition "The City Beneath the City", organized by the Greek Ministry of Culture and the N.P. Goulandris Foundation and held at the Museam of Cycladic Art, Athens, 29 February 2000-31 December 2001. "[...] Important parts of ancient Athens were investigated during the excavations, conducted for the most part on the sites of Stations and Ventilation Shafts for the Railway. More than 30,00 moveable objects were brought to light. Following a necessarily strict process of selection, the Managing Committee chose about 500 objects for inclusion in the present exhibition. Our overriding criterion was the requirement that non only finds from each new station should be put on display but also the surviving evidence of the whole gamut of life led by Athenians over a period of twenty-five centuries: day-to-day existence and public life, religion and burial practices. [...] The catalogue, an indispensable adjunct of the exhibition documenting its contents, was compiled under the scholarly supervision and with the general oversight of Professor Nikos Stampolidis and Dr Liana Parlama. Apart from them, the archaeologists who excavated the several sites on behalf of the 1st and 3rd Ephorates of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities, undertook the compilation of the catalogue entries. I congratulate and thank them all. [...]" (Dolly Goulandris, from the preface)