The turn of the Greek intelligentsia and the educated social elite to antiquities takes place in the last decades before the War of Independence: archaeological collections are created, the antiquarian editions become more frequent, the Press dedicates more and more space to antiquarian and archaeological subjects in the section “Archaeology”. At the same time the reaction against the Greek participation in the trafficking of antiquities is piling up. The turn to antiquities is the impact of the local philological traditions, which is inspired by the excessive archaeological interest of the foreigners. The intelligentsia understands the political and symbolic value of the ancient monuments, which is internationally recognized as national legacy. The scattered and omnipresent antiquities are the material tokens of national excellence, by far more direct than the philological heritage, which verify and confirm both continuation and sequence.