Agora Excavations, 1931-2006

In 2006, the American School of Classical Studies at Athens celebrates seventy five years of archaeological work in the Athenian Agora, the civic center of classical Athens. Since the first trench was dug on May 25th 1931, excavations have continued in a series of yearly campaigns, only briefly interrupted by the Second World War. The impact of the discoveries made on our understanding of Athenian history and topography is well-documented, but relatively little has been published about the fascinating history of the Agora excavations - from the clearing of one of the most densely settled areas of Ottoman Athens at the start of the enterprise to the reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos twenty five years later to house the finds. This book fills that gap, presenting a pictorial history of the project illustrated with many archival photographs. Rather than taking a simple chronological approach, the authors focus on some of the greatest contributions of the American School's work, such as the reconstruction of the Church of the Holy Apostles from 1954-1956 and the painstaking work involved in re-building the Stoa. Each section of photographs is preceded by an introductory text, and there are a number of maps and diagrams placing the images in context. This book contains text in modern Greek.