BMCR 1997.09.12

Athens. The Ancient Heritage and the Historic Cityscape in a Modern Metropolis

, Athens : the ancient heritage and the historic cityscape in a modern metropolis. The Archaeological Society at Athens library, no. 140. Athens: Archaeological Society at Athens, 1994. xxiii, 445 pages : illustrations, maps. ISBN 9789607036414. 36,400 dr..

In the Preface, Basil Petrakos, Secretary General of the Archaeological Society at Athens, situates the work within the context of the program of the Archaeological Society and summarizes the contents thus: “This volume gives a composite view of the remains of ancient Athens in relation to the changing shape of the modern city as it has evolved over the years in accordance with the thinking of classical scholars and of the political, social and economic forces prevailing in Greece from 1832 to the present day.”

Introduction : “The problem of integrating the urban heritage in the complex townscape and the variety of functions of today’s city life has not up until now been sufficiently investigated,” (p. xv). The term “cultural-historical area of Athens,” a concept pervading the book, is introduced on p. xvi as follows:

The central area, where the architectural and urban heritage of Athens is to be found and where features of ancient topography are still recognizable, will be described in this work as the cultural-historic area of Athens, a crescent shaped zone including from west to east: the ancient Academy area, the Kerameikos excavations, the hills of the Pnyx range and the Areopagus, the classical Agora and the Roman Agora, the Akropolis and its slopes, the old town district of Plaka, the area around the temple of Zeus Olympios, the rebuilt Panatheniac stadium, the inner city parks and the replanted hill of Lykabettos.

With this the author introduces a second agenda, his utopian proposal to create a “cultural-historic area,” a huge park-like zone extending all the way from Hippios Kolonos in northwest Athens to Lykabettos. Though in itself a worthwhile project theoretically speaking, the way in which the details of the proposal for this project are scattered through the book skews the main purpose of the book as outlined in the introduction. The descriptions of the archaeological sites of Athens and the ways in which they have been integrated or not into the urban structure should have been presented independently, not subordinated to the author’s wildly quixotic proposal for a “cultural-historic area.” The same holds true for other concerns of the book. This flaw runs like an earthquake faultline throughout the book which spasmodically see-saws between discussions of developments occurring in all Athens and those pertaining only to his “cultural-historic area.”

“Recent socio-political developments. A survey of trends in the economy and planning with special emphasis on housing, industrial settlement and the preservation of the cultural heritage” (pp. xix-xxiii). A valuable contribution.

Chapter 1 : The Historic Setting (pp. 1-129).

“Alternative concepts during the first decade (1832-1842)” (pp. 3-27). The author deals with town-planning concepts, both realized and unrealized, with special attention to archaeological areas and parks.

“Later schemes and initiatives: the gradual creation of the cultural-historical area of Athens” (pp. 28-105). This section is chock full of interesting information on successive town-plans; various master plans and remodelling schemes for Athens; the National Observatory, the Royal Garden; Panathenaic Stadium; the Zappeion Exhibition Hall and Zappeion Gardens; The Theseion Garden; the banks of the Ilissos as a recreational area in the 19th century; Ernst Ziller’s proposal for Lykabettos; reafforestation of the Athenian hills; modern architecture inappropriate to the “cultural-historical area” with stress on the Hilton; landscaping projects for archaeological areas.

Without any kind of preparation the reader is hurled headlong into the presentation of the “cultural historical area” as if it were a fait accompli, whereas in fact it is merely the author’s name for his elaborately impractical and partly undesirable plans for creating a cultural-historical park; the twelve sectors are arbitrarily chosen divisions, the locations of which are never made clear in terms of present-day Athens. With the exception of a few section plans provided with street names, the essential information is not provided: the twelve sectors of the “cultural-historic area” are never shown projected on a standard city plan giving the names of streets, plazas, churchs, hills and other natural features. Our very first sight of the entire “cultural-historical area” is the utterly unenlightening fig. 33 where it is blurrily superimposed on a plan of Athens made in 1840. Fig. 34 displays the twelve sectors meaninglessly sprawled out on a big empty white background. Fig. 35 with the “cultural-historic area” outlined on an air view of Athens is also up in the air. The AL-MA plan of Athens at 1:10,000 with the grid of the State Topographical Service is readily available. Without it the majority of the plans are unintelligible to the point of meaninglessness. The baffling vignettes of the twelve sectors are triumphs of the author’s determination to frustrate his readers by exhibiting the areas he aims to link up in a vacuum.

“The Picture is The Message: Athens of the 19th and 20th centuries documented in photographs” (pp. 106-129). A first-rate original study by Gerhild Huebner; only the small print in note eighty reveals who wrote this excellent piece of clearly structured shining scholarship, where the notes and illustrations are for once coordinated with the text.

Chapter 2 : The Site, “The twelve sectors of the cultural-historic area of Athens: main historic remains; urban functions and land use pattern; traffic axes” (pp. 133-201).

The twelve sectors are as follows: 1) Kolonos Hippios, the Academy area and Dipylon Academy Road, 2) Kerameikos Excavations and vicinity, 3) The Pnyx range: Hill of the Nymphs, Pnyx Hill, Mouseion Hill (Philopappos), 4) Agora Excavations, the Roman Agora, the Areopagus, the Akropolis with upper slopes, 5) Plaka, the old town of Athens, 6) National Garden, Zappeion Gardens and the garden of the Presidential Mansion, 7) Olympieion area with the Ilissos river banks, 8) The First Cemetery of Athens, 9) Ardettos Hill and the stadium, 10) the Athens Cultural Complex, 11) Lykabettos lower east slope, 12) Lykabettos, the replanted area.

Chapter 2 is fine, as long as one keeps firmly in the forefront of one’s mind that much independently useful concrete information has been embedded in the presentation of the abstract “cultural-historic area.” As an example of the unsatisfactory nature of the set-up, we take a look at Sector 1 of the “cultural-historic area” consisting of Kolonos Hippios, the Academy and the Dipylon- Academy Road (pp. 140-143). Whereas the whole point of the “cultural-historical area” proposal is to link up the twelve sectors, the plan of Sector 1 (p. 140) is cut off so that one cannot see how Sector 1 is supposed to link up with Sector 2, the Kerameikos Excavations; the disorienting plan does not even give the names of the streets so that one can understand what is where; it does not correctly reproduce the area of the archaeological excavations of the Academy, and there is no way of co-ordinating this meaningless plan with Travlos’ plan of the Academy Excavations, fig. 164. The Academy boundary stone ca. 500 B.C., the only fixed point for the Academy, appears neither on the author’s plan on p. 140 nor on the Travlos plan of the Academy, fig. 164. Figure 169 reproducing the Travlos plan of the entire area including the ancient streets connecting the Kerameikos and the Academy and the position of the boundary stone ( Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens, fig. 417 ) is useless because it omits Travlos’ caption identifying the numbered features.

The author proposes to link the Academy excavations to the Kerameikos Excavations by creating a corridor, a “green zone” (pp. 140, 143) following the line of the ancient road from the Dipylon Gate to the Academy which for the greater part of its course underlies present-day Plataion and Platonos Streets. According to the author’s rough sketches (fig. 11 and p. 140) the houses on either side of these two streets and in some cases entire city blocks are to be expropriated for the sake of the corridor. The Greek Archaeological Service has given permission for building permits on 56 different properties bordering the two streets in question after carrying out careful excavations and coming to the decision that in no case was it desirable to keep any of the sites open to view. It is now out of the question to expropriate properties on which the owners have legally built.

Whereas the photos accompanying the text to Sector 1 consist of three photographs of Kolonos Hippios (figs. 160, 161, 163) and one irrelevant photograph of a grave monument in the Kerameikos Excavations (fig. 162), there is not a single photograph of the Academy Excavations or of any find from the Academy Excavations, e.g., the Academy boundary stone.

Sector 2: Kerameikos Excavations and Vicinity. The unnumbered vignette of Sector 2 on p. 143 is bafflingly obscure, conveying no sense of the topographical situation. Fig. 166 is a miserably inadequate “topographic sketch plan of the Kerameikos Excavations” from a guidebook by Philadelpheus published in 1973, whereas the author could have had for the asking one of the excellent recent plans of the Kerameikos Excavations drawn up by the architects of the German Archaeological Institute.

The breath-taking plans for expropriation in this sector are unintelligibly set out so that the reader has no idea of what is involved. A strip 500 meters long occupied by the Athens-Peiraeus railroad is to be expropriated! The General Medical Clinic founded in 1948 by the Jewish Community of Athens and the American Joint Distribution Committee at 10 Melidoni St. is marked for expropriation. The author also plans to expropriate storerooms of the Greek Archaeological Service at 12 Melidoni Street. Two thousand crates of context pottery from excavations all over Athens conducted by the Greek Archaeological Service in 1974-1987 were transferred to these storerooms in 1989. Since it took the reviewer four years to put in order over three thousand crates of the old finds from the Kerameikos Excavations, she can well picture the distress of her colleagues when they learn of a proposal to expropriate their storerooms.

Sector 4 (pp. 154-173) lumps together the Agora Excavations, Roman Agora, Areopagus, the Akropolis with upper slopes. The plan of the sector with its numbered features on p. 154 is ill-attuned to its caption listing the Roman Agora and the Library of Hadrian as no. 24 which has no corresponding number on the plan but turns up on p. 174 in Sector 5. No. 31 listed in the caption is also not shown on the plan. In short the plan is a mess not co-ordinated with the captions, the illustrations and the text. One wonders if the author has been over the ground on his own two feet.

The glitchful proposals for Sectors 5-7 and 9-12 are not reviewed.

Sector 8 sets forth the author’s ungodly proposal to incorporate the First Cemetery of Athens in his “cultural-historic area” ( pp. 188-189). “This area although essentially devoted to a single function today, has the potential for a more diversified use in the future, e.g., public green space, open-air museum for sculpture, feasible if strict fencing-in were to be abolished and a lighting system installed.” The author also envisages pedestrianizing the approach to the main entrance of the Athens First Cemetery and linking it up with the archaeological zone south of the Olympieion in order to facilitate tourist flow. All day long funeral services are held in the great church at the First Cemetery main entrance, followed by the processions to the grave and the burial services. Abolish the strict fencing-in, as the author wishes, and the bunches of flowers brought to the graves would be peddled every night in the tavernas of Athens and the Peiraeus, the sculpture would be defaced, the lamps stolen, smaller gravestones would disappear, the church services attended by pickpockets, the grave plots littered with the debris of back-packers spending the night. This proposal does not do the author honour.

Chapter 3 : “Preservation of Monuments in Greece and Archaeological Research in Athens” (pp. 201-355).

Pp. 206-212 is a valuable exposition of the legislative and organizational framework for the protection of the Greek heritage. “The Current Concensus concerning Preservation Philosophy” (pp. 213-224): pp. 219-224 contain a text by Charalambos Bouras published in Study for the Restoration of the Parthenon, Athens, 1983, 698-707. “The Main Restoration and Preservation Projects on the Athenian Akropolis” (pp. 224-238): except for the haphazard notes this well-written section is by Maria Casanaki and Fanni Malouchou. Note 118, in a slippery way, acknowledges the true authorship, thus barely managing to avoid the charge of plagiarism but sadly lacking in professional courtesy. The author might have mentioned that the text is a translation; the translator is not too keen about the condemnatio oblivionis to which she has been consigned.

“Controversial measures in Athens” (pp. 238-246). The author launched his spiteful attack on the reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos on p. 158: “The Stoa of Attalos as one sees it now contains less than 10% of the original material. This venture must be considered as a very controversial restoration measure.” On p. 239 the author indicates that the reconstruction is not acceptable and p. 242 “we are insisting on the term ‘reconstruction‘ because to speak in this case of a ‘restoration‘ when more than 95% of the original architectural fabric is lost forever would be a specious euphemism” as if the American School of Classical Studies were claiming to have the Stoa of Attalos. The blindly flailing author has launched a boomerang for on the very same page, note 130, he cites the report by the Director of the Agora Excavations, Homer A. Thompson, explicitly describing the project as a reconstruction. P. 245, the Author considers “the direct juxtaposition of discreet low rise authentic ruins with the bulky mass of a ‘full-scale architectural model’ [the Stoa of Attalos] as unmitigatedly unfortunate. The sensitive visitor [and who might that be, pray tell?] longs to have his imagination kindled by a discreet suggestion of ancient ruins and not extinguished by the sight of a counterfeit ancient monument. Since the Stoa of Attalos is bound to acquire a patina in the course of time, the day will come when the ordinary visitor will be misled, not being able to distinguish between the genuinely ancient temple of Hephaistos and the twentieth century counterfeit stoa.” (Italics mine throughout). “Counterfeit” implies that a copy has been made with intent to deceive. From the start of construction the public has been abundantly informed of every phase of the reconstruction. The “ordinary visitor” will never be misled. In his text and bibliography the author fails to cite any of the many publications presenting the reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos in progress. How eminently satisfactory it is to see visitors strolling down the great colonnade of the Stoa of Attalos, conversing with each other, mingling their admiration for and curiosity about the ancient sculpture and inscriptions around them with the concerns of their daily lives. The Stoa of Attalos is a place where the artificial barriers setting academic study in an air-tight compartment separated from personal life fall away, The reconstruction is an achievement of which the American School of Classical Studies is justly proud, and the “ordinary” visitors whom we tough-minded Americans much prefer to the “sensitive” visitors have taken to the Stoa of Attalos like ducks to water. Although castigating the Americans for reconstructing the Stoa of Attalos, the author has not a word to say about the exemplary restoration of the 11th century Church of The Holy Apostles undertaken by the American School of Classical Studies.

“Archaeological sites in “living” historic urban centres: A major controversy” (pp. 247-259). P. 249 the author comments on the expropriations in the old “living” town quarter for the sake of the Agora Excavations. “Although the Athenian population has always had strong emotional ties with the traditional 19th c. townscape, the vision of recovering the splendours of antiquity (even ruined!) proved to be stronger ” Although every single house in the Agora Excavations was photographed before it was taken down the author has deliberately chosen not to illustrate any of these nondescript dwellings, thus leaving the reader with the impression that the fascinating-looking old houses from other areas so beautifully illustrated in figs. 296-335 give an idea of what was sacrificed for the sake of the Agora Excavations. The author sheds no tears for what happened elsewhere in Athens when the great nineteenth-century mansions and lovely vernacular architecture were demolished to be replaced by hideous apartment and office buildings during the construction of which the contractors hastily ripped out and destroyed every vestige of antiquity so that construction would not be held up by excavations. As for “the vision of recovering the splendours of antiquity (even ruined!)” the Agora Excavations have recovered the archaeological record of nearly 5,000 years of the history of Athens from the Late Stone Age to the present day as well as many “splendours of antiquity.”

“The Rehabilitation of the Plaka, The Old Town of Athens” (pp. 252-268). A fine lucid section. A long essential study on the Plaka is quoted on pp. 258, 262 and 268, so broken up by the irrelevant intervening illustrations that easily one loses sight of the fact that this is a continuous text by Dionysis Zivas.

“Archaeology in Athens 1828-1988” (269-313). The author had the brilliant idea of providing a history of excavations in Athens year by year and this survey has proven so fruitful that one wonders how come no archaeologist thought of doing this before. It must be stressed, however, that the heading “Archaeology in Athens” is extremely misleading since the author insisted on limiting the survey to the twelve sectors of the “cultural-historic area.” Important excavations are missing (e.g., Epicurus’ Garden). Once again the obsession with the “cultural-historic area” proposal has been allowed to throw the main goals of the book out of kilter. Pp. 269 – 313 were written entirely by the reviewer. I was not permitted to read proof and my text was mangled. On p. 269 I explain that my own assessments are enclosed in square brackets, but the printed text substituted parentheses for square brackets with the results that my comments are now attributed to other sources. The findspots given in terms of present-day streets have been rendered meaningless by the lack of a city plan giving the names of streets. Although I specified that my text was not to be accompanied by illustrations, the author has arbitrarily dotted it with haphazard illustrations not coordinated with the text. It should not have happened to a doge as the man said when he fell into the Grand Canal.

“Art Museums in the Cultural-Historic Area” (pp. 314-321). A solidly informative section on ten museums, but the plan (fig. 351) purporting to show location of museums in the cultural-historic area of Athens is meaningless. Once again the author’s obsession with the “cultural-historic area”proposal has unbalanced the book which, on a rational scheme, would have dealt with all of the Athens museums (the Goulandris Museum, the Historical Museum, etc.) in one place. On the other hand The Hellenic War Museum which by rights should have been included in this section was banned from the “cultural-historic area” due to prejudice: “this bulky structure is a severe offence to the nearby Byzantine Museum and to the site” (p. 196). In spite of the fact that it was built during the dictatorship, this museum is one of the most delightfully educational museums imaginable, providing a fascinating survey of Greek history from the Late Stone Age to the present, presenting many cultural artifacts and many historic artifacts as befits a museum in the “cultural-historic area.” The original stone of the Themistokles Decree in the Epigraphical Museum is so battered and discoloured that only a specialist can read it, but here ordinary visitors are thrilled to be able to read the word “freedom” in the bright red letters of the replica. The well-designed auditorium is a favourite venue for cultural events and international conferences.

“Landscaping the Archaeological Sites” (pp. 323-355). A fascinating section about the philosophy and principles of landscaping archaeological sites and descriptions of what has been done. Ralph Griswold’s landscaping of the Agora Excavations is well described. Whereas ten illustrations (figs. 369-378) are devoted to the landscaping of a small insignificant plot in front of the Odeion of Herodes Atticus, designed by Christos Lembesis and the author, the landscaping of the entire Kerameikos Excavations originally designed and executed by the reviewer (and subsequently expanded by others) is represented by two illustrations (figs. 379, 381) which are illogically interrupted by a view of the Olympieion area. In contradistinction to the author’s own noteworthy efforts, my planting in the Kerameikos is not worthy to be termed landscaping and is left anonymous.

Pp. 339-355 are devoted to the life and works of Dimitris Pikionis who designed the approaches to the Akropolis and Philopappos Hill. Ecstatic claims for Pikionis’ signficance as “the guardian of the eternal features of Attica” (p. 324) are not supported by the evidence. The author considers Pikionis’ work to be highly significant, inventive, brilliant, perfectly harmonizing with the ancient remains and enhancing them. The reviewer considers Pikionis’ concoctions to be fussy, self-consciously eye-catching absurdities, discordantly out of tune with the ancient remains and detracting from them. There is no middle ground. Reader take your choice.

Chapter 4 : “The Social and Cultural Aspects” [of the “cultural historic area”] (pp. 359-402).

“How Greeks and visitors from abroad approach and react to the historic site” (pp. 359-383). This section is a mixed bag of extreme interest. Parts of the text and the ideas for illustrating commercial exploitation of the classical heritage closely follow the book, Utopische Vergangenheit, Berlin, 1976, by Nikolaus Himmelmann, occasionally translating it word for word. The grudging acknowledgement of Himmelmann’s contribution in the small print of note 154 is just plain shabby. Pp. 360-368 dealing with the problems of access to and integration and landscaping of the twelve sectors of the “cultural-historic area” is illustrated by eight confusing plans. “Athenian lifestyle: how the people of Athens relate to the natural and cultural assets of the historic site” (368-370). A lively informative entertaining piece.

“The Educational Approach to the Cultural Heritage” (pp. 372-376). A well thought-out treatment of the various methods of educating the public, but with an exorbitant amount of text and all of the absurdly repetitive illustrations devoted solely to Cornelia Hatziaslani’s admirable program for school children. Some of this space could well have been used to describe other worthwhile educational programs for school children offered by the Benaki Museum since 1978 and by the Lambrakis Foundation which makes and distributes videos to the schools of Greece. Since 1962 College Year in Athens has introduced many hundreds of young American students with no previous training to the monuments and sites of Athens in such a way that whatever professions they ultimately choose they remain permanently magnetized by ancient Athens; unlike the other one-shot programs this is a total immersion in-depth course involving twenty-four ninety-minute presentations out-of-doors on the sites or in museums.

“Cultural Events, Sports, Festivals” (pp. 376-385). The author distinguishes between activities conducted outside the archaeological zones and those performed in or at ancient monuments and gives a good cross-section of both. As an example of the Greek purist approach to antiquities, discouraging serious creative efforts he indignantly reports at some length how the German director, Peter Stein, was not permitted to stage the Oresteia in the Theatre of Dionysos in 1980 (pp. 376-377, note 157). It matters not one jot to the author that any dramatic performance in the Theater of Dionysos means surefire damage to the slightly more serious creative efforts of the theatre builders. A disproportionate amount of space is devoted to an exhibition of sculpture by Helen Stratou on Pnyx Hill with the Acropolis as a fitting backdrop, accompanied by the sculptor’s self-glorifying statements, (p. 383), declaring in all seriousness that her sculpture seemed to belong there and that when they were moved away the Pnyx Hill itself “seemed bare, empty and lonely.” Wow.

“Modern Exploitation of the Historic Heritage of Athens” (pp. 386-401) covers the four topics of the symbolic and emotional significance of the historic heritage; commercial exploitation of the classical heritage; exploitation of the monuments and the historic site in connection with the tourist flow. P. 390 “The Greek people are strongly attached to the Akropolis as a landmark with symbolic connotations of eternal Hellenic greatness and creativity.” The big words ring hollow.

“Outlook” (pp. 403-406): “The central concern of this study is the overall preservation of the historic cityscape of Athens in order to improve the cultural, environmental and living conditions of the metropolis.” In order to achieve his “Cultural Park” the author envisages fifteen future excavations involving massive expropriations to be carried out over the next hundred years. The proposal is illustrated by the plan on fig. 457 which is a mess from start to finish and reveals in conjunction with the accompanying text the author’s stunning ignorance of excavations and excavation desiderata in Athens. Although the author has ostentatiously omitted the American Agora Excavations from his list of future excavations, he has marked for expropriation the north side of the Agora which he designates as “The Monastiraki area” including a section now being excavated by the Agora excavators. This is all the more galling as the author has stated (p. 403) that UNESCO and foreign archaeological institutes are to pay for his grand plan. At the present moment the sole foreign archaeological institute which might possibly consider financing expropriation in Athens is the American School of Classical Studies.

Appendix A: “Letters, Reports and Memoranda 1832-1839: Documents concerning the preservation of the architectural heritage of Athens in connection with planning schemes for the new capital” (pp. 407-426). Thirteen highly illuminating documents including the first Greek law concerning antiquities passed in 1834 and Leo von Klenze’s memorandum of 1834 on procedures to be followed in excavating on the Acropolis.

Appendix B: List of articles published in the Allgemeine Bauzeitung, Vienna, between 1838 and 1864, concerning architecture, town-planning, archaeology and preservation of monuments in Greece during the reign of King Otto” (pp. 426-428). A valuable resource even though twenty-three of the forty-two entries have nothing to do with the subject of the book, which is the last place where one would go to find out about progress in constructing the quarantine-station on the island of Syra or on the water supply system of Constantinople.

Bibliography (pp. 429-434). Since this bibliography was a revelation to the reviewer who previously imagined that she had a grip on the subject, other readers will doubtless find it absorbing.

The book had no editor and lacks professional finish. There is no index, thus denying access to a wealth of information about the many hundreds of people and scores of institutions and buildings, little known outside Greece, that figure in the development of 19th and 20th century Athens. Due to the self-indulgent lay-out, many pages are half or a quarter empty. Roughly estimated, one sixth of the book is empty space, wasted paper.

Greece is a signatory to the Bern Convention on copyright. Each country that signs is committed to observe a certain standard: permission to cite a text must be obtained from the author, publisher and translator. The piratical author quotes extensively from the following authors without having obtained permission from the owners of the copyright: Vincent Scully, p. 78; Charalambos Bouras, pp. 219-224; Maria Casanaki and Fani Malouchou, pp. 224-238; Dionysis Zivas, pp. 258, 262, 268; Nikolaus Himmelmann, pp. 359 ff. The author publishes three documents from the Agora Archives without permission to do so (pp. 328-335), one by Homer Thompson and two by Ralph Griswold the landscape architect. A lengthy list, giving the English common names, the Latin scientific names and the modern Greek names of plants used in the Agora landscaping program, represents a good deal of work on the part of Ralph Griswold who spent three years studying the flora of Greece before he started planting. Not only is this list published without permission and not credited to R. Griswold, but when it comes to describing the plants in the author’s own little landscaping project he is content to state (p. 339) “suitable clumps of low bushes were planted.” On the other hand figs. 184 and 186 which have often appeared in Agora and other publications are credited to the Agora Archives as if previously unpublished. The model of Athens shown in fig. 32 is not credited to John Travlos.

The illustrations are a gold mine. Beautiful photographs by the author enhance the book from every point of view: the choice of subject, the composition and the feeling for light. The few reproductions of drawings by the author make one wish for more. The rare air photographs, the richness of the documentation of 19th and 20th century Athens is overwhelming. It would have been kinder to the reader to offer the gold in the form of bullion rather than making him dig out the metal for himself. The captions to many photographs are not properly documented. Photographs taken from books lack the references to the page or illustration numbers. The negative numbers of photographs from the German Archaeological Institute, The Agora Excavations, the Benaki Museum, the Greek Ministry of Housing and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in München are not cited. In fig. 162 no source is given for the photograph of a grave relief in the Kerameikos excavations and it is hard to understand why one would cut off the legs of the figures. In Figs. 251, 349 and elsewhere no source for the illustration in given. With the exception of G. Huebner’s article the illustrations are not properly coordinated with the text. A photograph of the Akropolis with the north slope is printed twice, figs. 151 and 268. Whereas the caption to fig. 151 written by Gerhild Huebner gives the name of the photographer and the DAI Athens Inst. phot. negative number, the caption to fig. 268 written by the author omits this information.

Sources for the text are inadequately documented and sometimes entirely lacking. Lack of page references to the books cited is a severe deficiency.

Strictures notwithstanding, the impressive range of pictorial sources, the coverage of so many different facets of urban development, the presentation of so much little known data make this book a rare contribution to our knowledge of 19th-20th century Athens.