The exhibition <Myrtis: Face to Face with the Past> was started in 2010 in the New Acropolis Museum of Athens and embarked a journey since 2011 as a travelling exhibition inside Greece and abroad. The main purpose of the exhibition was to draw attention of the general public to the value of the ‘rescue excavation’ and of cultural heritage of Greece, by presenting the reconstruction bust of a girl whose skull was found in Kerameikos cemetery of ancient Athens. The new Kerameikos excavation was initiated by the construction of Metropolitan Railway lines in the center of Athens between 1992 to 1998. It revealed a pit of a mass burial where about 150 people were inhumed in a very hasty way without proper funeral rites or offerings. These bodies are identified as the victims of the infamous plague of Athens in the first years of the Peloponnesian War(430-426 BC). The epidemic disease killed almost one third of the city population including Pericles, and brought extreme fear and panic to the Athens society. The traditional funerary rites were totally disrupted, and the social decorum and the morality among the citizens became enfeebled. The plague and the civil war were the decisive factors to end the Golden Age of Democratic Athens. However, the exhibition organizers did not focus on the tragic aspect of this disaster and its casualties. Their main concern was to simplify the scholarly works of archaeological excavation and microchemistry analysis so that the exhibition viewers will easily understand and empathize the living value of the scholarly works of ancient Greek civilization. The centripetal element of the exhibition was the vivid face of an 11 years old ancient girl ‘Myrtis’, which was carefully reconstructed based on both the scientific data and artistic imagination. Also the set up of the exhibition was structured in order to stimuli cognitive and emotional experience of the visitors who witnessed the rebirth of a vibrant human being from an ancient debris. The museologists’ continuous efforts to promote projects of contemporary artists, publications, and school programs related to the <Myrtis> exhibition indicate that the ulterior motive of this exhibition is the cultural education of the present and future generation through the intimate experiences of ancient Greek life. Also this is the reason why the various museums that held the travelling exhibition try to make the presentation as a gesture of memorial service for an anonymous Athenian girl who deceased circa 2400 years ago. The pragmatic efforts of Greek scholars and museologists through <Myrtis> exhibition show us a way to find a solution to the continuous threat of cultural resources by massive construction projects and land development, and to overcome public indifference to the history and cultural heritage.

I. 서론
 II. 발견
  1. 도시 개발과 구조 발굴
  2. 집단 매장터와 무덤 봉헌물
 III 죽음: 아테네 대 역병
 IV. 재생
  1. 갈색 머리의 소녀
  2. 추모
 V 결론: 끝나지 않은 여정
 참고문헌 Bibliography
 Abstract

• 조은정(목포대학교) | Cho, Eun-Jung