A life project and also a gesture for the city is the newly founded Athens Museum of the Athenian Association, which now awaits the public and researchers in Plaka, at 10 Kekropos Street. , “shows Athens from the end of Turkish rule to the 20th century”.

For Eleftherios Skiadas and the members of the association, the opening of the museum is a great moment. A vision of decades, the Athens Museum is spread out in one room, offering the public heirlooms and priceless documents about Athens and the great families that laid the foundations of the new urban society after 1830. “Here we can explore all of Athens”. And, above all, to think about how much more evidence can be found in the club archives. In the museum, everything that determined the evolution of Athens is presented in chronological order. Precious 100- and 200-year-old furniture has been lovingly restored. Treasures have come to light.

Only the descendants of old Athenian families become members of the Athens Association, founded in 1895, and gradually, especially important archives were collected at the expense of donations. Thanks to the important contributions of Evangelos Stasinopoulos and the driving force behind Eleftherios Skiadas, who spent decades studying Athens, the Museum of Athens has now become the capital’s new landmark. The Athens Museum, designed by the architect Panagiotis Pagalos, is partly trying to reconstruct the historical exhibition opened by the association in 1937 in the same space (in the old building that existed) with all the relics of the Athenians.

A guided tour by Eleftherios Skiadas is a very special experience, but also a way for the visitor to experience the wonder of young Athens. “Athens was built by expatriates on fortunes brought in from abroad,” he says. There are traces of the Scuse, Serpieri, Suyutzoglu and Duchess Placencia families in the museum. The names are indicative, since the story begins in 1780 and continues at the first stage until 1833, when the Turkish garrison left the Acropolis (there is a document on the receipt of the Acropolis from Christophoros Nether). Touching all the elements of those early years: with the symbolic figure (as an Athenian symbol) of Dimitrios Kamburoglu (in the terracotta figurine of Lukia Georgantis), as he made up most of the genealogies. “We have 12,500 pedigrees,” says Eleftherios Skiadas.

And indeed, the genealogy of Athens is a star. Together with stories half-lit, forgotten or unknown to us, contemporary. Saint Philothea, written 20 years after her death (donated by Theodosius Benizelos). Papyrus signed by Kamburoglu. The decisive contribution of the Skuse family. Fictional figure of Panagis Skose who becomes a sailor, becomes rich and returns to Athens to reclaim his property (hence Scouse Hill – there are nine place names for Scouse). Skuses left the “Chronology of the Enslaved Athens”. How the Athenians lived… Tercetis discovered it in 1859.

The Senior family is married to the Sarri family. Eleonada from Piraeus to Kifisia. Oil of Athens. Soap. At the exhibition, you can explore Athens in detail, house by house, before the Liberation. Tsotres for wine and water of the Totomi family. Weapon of Georgantas Skuse, who fought on the Acropolis. Sword with the letter “O”, brought by Otho.

Large families get married. Pachy’s house. Eleni Kapsali, who married George Skus and was secretary to Duchess Placencia. Pictures of Athens. 25th anniversary of George I in 1888 and great deeds. Lighting, squares, Zappeion. Skose’s mansion at Rigillis, a palace. Suyutsoglu family from Asia Minor. Living rooms and dining rooms. Ceiling lamp of the god of love, cast iron 40 kg. Porcelain and silverware. Limoges and initials engraved on silver cutlery. Portraits of Germenis and Matiopoulos. Duchess Placencia Books. Furniture from the palaces of Otho, rescued by King Alexander and donated by Aspasia Manu, a relative of Angelos Gerontas.

Audio archive of Lisa Skewes for 50 people, 20th century presumption. The unsung hero Johnny Serpieri and the 1924 Olympic tennis champion Didi Serpieri. A world that has risen to tell us its stories again.