Vrysaki: A Neighborhood Lost in Search of the Athenian Agora by Sylvie Dumont (review)

Between 1931 and 1939, more than 348 houses were demolished, and 5,000 people were evacuated from the neighborhood of Vrysaki to create an archaeological zone that would feature Athens’ ancient Agora. In her book Vrysaki: A Neighborhood Lost in Search of the Athenian Agora, Sylvie Dumont seeks to reconstruct this lost neighborhood, following its various stages of transformation from a residential area to a world-renowned archaeological site. Inspired by the interest of people whose families had lived there and their desire to reconnect with their families’ past, Dumont writes about Vrysaki’s residents and explores their life experiences and places of work, socialization, and worship.

As Dumont establishes early on, the idea of an archaeological site in the Agora coincided with the foundation of the Greek state and the search for a Greek identity in line with European political and intellectual desires. The political and economic conditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries hindered the realization of this idea until the beginning of the excavations by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) in 1931. Dumont focuses on the complex and lengthy negotiations involved in such an undertaking, examining such issues as property expropriations, how the limits of the excavations were defined, and the interactions between the Greek government, ASCSA, and the excavations’ patrons. The author is equally attentive to the reception of these negotiations, presenting petitions and court proceedings to highlight some of the residents’ severe financial difficulties and their opposition to the proposed compensations. Emphasis is also placed on the way in which these negotiations were presented in the public sphere and used as political means to criticize the government.

As the Agora excavations’ secretary and registrar, Dumont is both the steward of the excavations’ archives as well as their interpreter, and she focuses on the detailed records of the expropriated and demolished properties at Vrysaki. With great clarity and insightfulness, she presents excavation notes, photos, letters, drawings, and architectural plans and offers a stark visual testimony of the changes that took place in that part of Athens, altering people’s experiences in ways both small and large. Her extensive use of the excavation’s black-and-white photographs make for a stunning book, with many photos published here for the first time even though they can now also be found in the Agora’s online catalog (ASCSA 2020). Dumont must thus be commended for making this archival material widely available and for producing a beautifully illustrated book that addresses a wide range of people who connect and interact with the city of Athens.

The book is divided into two distinct sections. In the first part (Chapters 2–7), Dumont provides a historical context for the negotiations surrounding the expropriations and details the steps that led to the Agora excavations. The second part (Chapters 8–15) is a thorough presentation of the neighborhood’s social, economic, and architectural makeup, as well as of its gradual transformation into an archaeological site.

In Chapter 2, Dumont makes great use of late nineteenth and early twentieth century maps of the city in an effort to define the neighborhood’s geographic boundaries and discover the origins of its name. Chapter 3 discusses the role of antiquities and Athens’ classical past in the city’s redesign and bid to become the modern Greek state’s capital. Here Dumont contrasts the consistency of a plan for an archaeological zone in the Agora with the numerous and frequently changed ideas about the city’s development. In Chapter 4, the author highlights some key steps that facilitated the later excavations, including the founding of the Archaeological Society at Athens (Αρχαιολογική Εταιρεία) and the establishment of the foreign archaeological schools, as well as the gradual discovery of monuments and their reintroduction into the urban fabric.

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 explore the complexity of the...