y useful and manageable overview of the development of Athenian pottery and vase painting!
An open-air sculpture exhibit
The true highlight of the Kerameikos, however, is the set of grave monuments lining the ancient roads leading outside the city in what is today a park-like setting. An overview of the site is gained from a viewing platform on top of a rounded hill by the entrance. That hill itself is not natural: it is a tumulus, an artificial mound covering two graves from the late 6th century BC. Underneath lay the body of a man, accompanied by pottery from the far side of the Aegean, perhaps a privileged foreigner who lived in Athens under the Peisistratid tyranny. Smaller mounds nearby are probably the burial areas of noble families of the 7th and 6th centuries BC.
Beneath runs the Sacred Way, the road that led to Eleusis. Next to a triangular enclosure sacred to ancestral gods, is a series of gravestones belonging to ambassadors from Kerkyra (Corfu) and from Selymbria (on the Black Sea) who died in Athens, illustrating the city’s wide-ranging contacts. Beyond it, the road forks into two grave-lined streets. Both give a very good impression of what the necropolis would have looked like in the 5th or 4th centuries BC. It is clear that graves were placed and designed for maximum visibility to those entering or leaving the city. Most Classical grave monuments lining these streets were erected upon terrace walls on either side of them; the sarcophagi containing the dead were behind those walls.
There is more to see here than can be discussed in a simple blog post. But the southern side of the road forking left from the Sacred Way is an especially good illustration, as it features a series of especially fine monuments, exemplifying the considerable variation in the type of sculpture used on graves (most originals have been moved into the museum and replaced on site with copies).
At the corner stands the warrior relief mentioned above. It commemorates one Dexileos from Thorikos (this area was reserved for families from that town). He died , aged 20, in 394/393 BC, in battle against the Thebans, near Corinth. Like all fallen Athenian soldiers, he was buried alongside his comrades in mass interment – i.e. the grave crowned by his relief did not contain his remains but those of other members of his family.
It is followed by a terrace with graves of a family from Herakleia on the Black Sea shore, far away from Athens. A tall central stele bears the names of two brothers, Agathon and Sosikrates. To its left is a relief commemorating Korallion, Agathon’s wife. She is shown bidding farewell to her husband. On the right is a large monument (a naiskos, or grave shrine) for Agathon. Its decoration is lost, since it was not sculpted, but painted. Both corners of the terrace bore marble models of lekythoi, vases used for funeral offerings of olive oil.
Then follows one of the most famous monuments in the Kerameikos, the grave of Dionysios of Kollytos, a dual citizen of Attica and Samos, crowned by a marble bull. He died, young and unmarried, around 340 BC. The shrine in front bore inscribed poems about the deceased.
The next terrace, an enormous 16 metres long, was that of Lysimachides from Acharnai, who died after 338 BC. The sculptures now placed here probably belong to other monuments, except the large Molossian dog at the near corner, probably originally one of a pair.
This single row of graves is just a small excerpt, a glimpse of the very beautiful, highly atmospheric, potentially deeply informative and often profoundly moving experience that a visit to the Kerameikos is. And that experience itself is only one facet of the rich array of unforgettable impressions of, and insights into, past and present that Athens has to offer. You can enjoy the Keramikos on our Exploring Athens tour in spring.