The construction of one of the largest public works projects in Europe is taking place among the greatest sites of classical archaeology; five of the new Metro stations are within ancient Athens, in the shadow of the Acropolis.

The archaeological program is a joint effort of Attiko Metro S.A., the owner of the project, Olympic Metro Consortium and the Ministry of Culture (MoC), which is charged under Greek law with the responsibility of supervising all archaeological activity. The role of the MoC is to plan and supervise the excavations, safeguard artifacts and to educate the public through museum exhibits. Attiko Metro prvides funding and coordinates the interface of MoC activities with other parties. Olympic Metro Consortium mobilizes resources and provides logistical support required by the MoC to perform excavations, curation and storage. This sport includes specially trained labor, supplies, tools, equipment and new laboratories located in the renovated buildings.

Prior to the start of the project, OMC together with MoC verified with investigation trench and other methods expected archaeological high risk areas as they were described in the preliminary design of SOFRETOU -SOGELERG ADK. These are based on the results of careful mapping of previous suburface investigations, research of ancient literature and records such as the travelogue of Pausanias, test trenches, and modern techniques such as ground penetrating radar. This analysis highlighted five stations (Syntagma, Monastiraki, Keramikos, Olympion and Academia) where major excavations are also being performed at ventilation shafts mainly in the center of the city (Mitropoleos, Assomaton, Ermou and Arionos, Iakhou, Amalias, National Garden, Amerikis and Petmeza) where significant archaeological findings are anticipated.

The excavations uncovered material from all periods from the Neolithic through the modern era. Discoveries include a bathhouse, metal working shops, aqueducts, and cisterns, ancient roads and city walls, drains, cemeteries and random burial, and an enigmatic room filled with oil lamps decorated with erotic scenes.

At work sites for which non-important antiquities are expected, MoC archaeologists are "on-call" and respond as soon as construction workers encounter antiquities. Construction resources are the diverted elsewhere, until archaeologists clear the site. Surprise discoveries to date include a totally unexpected sarcophagus at Pentagono station and a large Roman-period drain at Larissa station.

A major factor in the decision to use tunnel-boring machines to bore 12 Km of train tunnels through solid rock was to eliminate the possibility of encountering culturalresources. Several stations such as Olympion, Monastiraki and Akadimia are being built by underground tunneling techniques, rather than the surface excavation technique, in order to minimize disturbing known sites.