The exhibition presents one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the past decades. A unique find from ancient Methone, the oldest Greek colony in the northern Aegean coast, founded in 733/2 BC by Eretrians from Euboea, on the west coast of the Thermaic Gulf.

Thousands of pottery sherds were found within a dug out pit (the so-called basement - "Ypogeium"), coming from various trading centres of the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. Among them, 191 vessels with inscriptions, symbols and incisions, dating to the late 8th and early 7th c. BC stand out, an era when alphabetic script began in Greece.

The historical and archaeological importance of the early inscriptions from Methone is that they are one of the rarest and oldest examples of the Greek alphabet, and the oldest in Macedonia and the northern Aegean. Their study sheds light on Greek colonisation, the uses of the alphabet, the dialects, the beginnings of poetry, the symposium and the trade networks of the eastern Mediterranean during the formative centuries, the 8th and 7th centuries BC. Especially for Macedonia, these finds are the oldest surviving inscriptions, offering crucial details on the long journey of the Greek language from that era to this day.

The exhibition was organised in cooperation with the 27th E.P.C.A., the Committee of Research of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the Greek Language Centre of the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs.