Look at the video:
Discussing Yannis Stavrou artistic work with Myrtis...
Yannis Stavrou paints the portrait of MYRTIS and participates in the moving exhibition "Myrtis: face to face with the past"...
The exhibition constitutes an interdisciplinary effort to depict aspects of Ancient Greece through the case study of Myrtis' skull, a girl that lived in Kerameikos in the 5th century BC.
A portrait of this girl was created by the painter Yannis Stavrou...
Interview - Discussing Yannis Stavrou artistic work with Myrtis...
My thoughts are just filled with responsibility and sensitivity...
It is very intriguing to paint the portrait of a person that you have never met...
What I'm trying to do is to elect my personal point of view through the existing material, to imagine Myrtis...
I was really moved by Myrtis story. She was a little girl who died at the time of the plague in 430 BC. I thought of her as young girl of the time, a daughter of a potter, maybe, living somewhere near Iera Odos...
I continued using my imagination and that is how this character was born, a character that is certainly a myth, but that myth will become a reality and that little girl will come to life...
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Myrtis letter is posted at the United Nations website:
MYRTIS, AN ATHENIAN GIRL WHO LIVED 2500 YEARS AGO,
IS SENDING A STRONG MESSAGE TO THE WORLD
(With these words, the United Nations Organization has declared Myrtis “a Millennium Friend” and a symbol of its global campaign “We Can End Poverty”)
My name is Myrtis. Actually this is not my true name. I was named “Myrtis” by the archeologists that discovered my bones in 1994-1995, in a mass grave with another 150 skeletons in the Athens area of Kerameikos.
I may look like a girl of the 21st century but I can assure you that I’m an eleven year old Athenian girl who lived and died in Athens during the 5th century BC.
So, how can a young ancient Athenian become a Millennium Friend of the United Nations?
The scientists are certain that I was one of the victims of the plague that struck Athens during the 5th century BC. They also know that the cause of my death was the typhoid fever that also killed the ancient Athenian statesman Pericles and roughly one third of all people living in the city at that time. They also say that it was this plague that contributed to Athens´ defeat by Sparta during the Peloponnesian Wars.
My skull was in an unusually good condition and this inspired Athens University Orthodontics professor Manolis J. Papagrigorakis to begin – with the help of specialist scientists – to effect a facial reconstruction. And, here I am. You can see the result of their efforts in my photo. I look almost exactly the same as the day I died.
Prof. Manolis J. Papagrigorakis thought that my ‘resurrection’ should not only be an opportunity for the world to see the face of a girl who played at the Acropolis while the Athenians were building the Parthenon, but he also wanted my “return” to send a strong message to the world and its leaders.
My death was inevitable. In the 5th century BC we had neither the knowledge nor the means to fight deadly illnesses. However, you, the people of the 21st century, have no excuse. You possess all the necessary means and resources to save the lives of millions of people. To save the lives of millions of children like me who are dying of preventable and curable diseases.
2,500 years after my death, I hope that my message will engage and inspire more people to work and make the Millennium Development Goals a reality.
Listen to me. I know what I’m saying. Never forget that I’m much older and therefore much wiser than you.»
Myrtis is the central person of the exhibition «Myrtis: Face to face with the past» which has begun a planned tour of Greek and foreign cities....
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