ual formation of the city state in the 7th and 6th centuries BC, the rise of Athens to the leading power of the Aegean in the 5th, as well as her defeat in the Peloponnesian War and her eventual incorporation into the Roman Empire. The very shape of the city, but also the life that took place within it and the beliefs and ideologies underlying it, evolved and changed again and again, all of which is reflected in the burial habits of the Kerameikos.
Burial as social history
For example, the prevailing form of burial veered back and forth between inhumation and cremation multiple times throughout the first millennium BC. Similarly, the shape of the tombs themselves changed, from simple pits in the earliest periods via great burial mounds for the noble families of the Archaic age to the elaborate grave terraces of the Classical period. At the same time, the type of objects placed alongside the dead or offered at their gravesides underwent a succession of transformations, as did the way individual graves were marked and monumentalised, first with enormous clay vases, later with marble statues, inscribed grave stones and other forms of sculpture. The absence of such monuments during certain periods (most of the 5th century BC and again after 317 BC) is also of interest, as it illustrates the Athenian state’s attempts to rein in excessive spending and social competition.
In the Kerameikos, all of this fascinating history can be traced in detail at the small but excellent site museum. Its collections include key examples of Athenian grave sculpture, among them the wonderful Kouros of the Sacred Gate from the early 6th century BC, and a series of very fine relief-decorated grave reliefs typical for the 4th century, usually depicting the deceased bidding farewell to their loved ones. They are among the finest pieces of ancient Greek stone-carving to have survived. The museum also displays personal objects placed within the graves, as well as a compact but comprehensive gallery of pottery found in or on tombs – an immensely 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 familie