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(The article was written in 1893, published in Athen. Mittheilungen XVIII, pp.73-191)
An Attic Cemetery (part 3, pp. 136-155)
III. An explanation of grave finds of the Geometric epoch.
In
the following we want to summarize what follows directly from the finds
in this cemetery for the epoch of geometric vases in Attica.
First
and foremost, we make the observation that the remains that have come
to light in the graves described bear a uniform character. G.
Hirschfeld also received the same impression during the excavations he
observed in 1871 and, based on Conze's investigations, described the
vases as Pelasgian [1], but especially since the connection with the
later Attic vases was recognized, many people agree age has been
underestimated. Even if we now believed that in some vessels we could
see an advance over earlier stages of geometric vase painting, there is
none among our finds that led beyond the geometric epoch; Both the
early Attic vases characterized by Böblau and the later black-figure
ones with shiny varnish are missing from the graves.
However, we
would have to expect to see the chronologically following vase genera
already represented among the rich furnishings of graves such as VII,
VIII, IX, XIII, if the view expressed most decisively - admittedly a
long time ago - by Löschcke, and then also by others, were correct,
that in Athens during the VII. and it seems even during the VI
century BC that Thong vessels were in use, which corresponded to those
from those tombs [2].
Of course, it cannot be denied that
(p.136) a geometrically decorated vessel survived until the sixth
century BC and even later. So i.e. a rough pot with poor spiral
ornaments [3], which could be up to 200 years old, only left the house
of its owner in the year 490 BC after the battle of Marathon, in order
to help with the recovery of the bones of the fallen freedom fighters
together with black-figure lekythos serve; but this old jug is no
longer characteristic in its form for the time of Euphronios and
Brygos. Now, however, the best and most perfect monuments of the
Dipylon period, the large funerary vases, and thus also the contents of
the graves below them, were first ascribed by Kroker and others [4] to
the second half of the seventh century. Then the whole mighty
development from that time, when the best skill of the potters of the
Kerameikos did not rise above the childlike silhouettes of the funeral
processions and ship battles of the dipylon vases, to the Pisistratic
epoch, in which the painters with playful mastery and inexhausted The
variety of events in life and the legendary fantasies of the
contemporary poets illustrated in the short span of scarcely more than
120 years (p.137) have taken place.
Almost
year after year Athenian finds teach us new stages in this development
and show how step by step the Athenian pottery guild rose to
perfection. The recently published Krater with his attempts to recreate
the old schemes while retaining the traditional ornaments revitalize,
based on personal observation, to represent fighting and playing more
lifelike [5], Böhlau's early Attic vases with their dichotomy between
the remaining silhouettes and the proliferation of new ornaments, which
clearly go back to the growing influence of a foreign formal language -
then the most decisive and momentous step in of the history of Athenian
pottery, for which one would most ardently wish that richer sources
would open up for its more precise knowledge, the detachment from the
geometric style, the conquest of new technical means and, above all, at
the same time the apparently suddenly rising interest in epic and
mythological ones Pictures, as the Berlin bowl from Aegina and a tomb
like the Netosamphora attest - from there on to the more measured,
stylistically confident figures of the Francois vase, from them to the
adorned grace of the masters like Arnasis and Exekias to finally
Epictetus and Euphronios - truly one long chain of technical and
cultural advances, and one in which no link is to be spared or skipped.
Since the Acropolis excavations have shown that the great pot painters
were already active in the tyrannical period, and since it has been
confirmed that the graves of the Geometric epoch in question here are
pure with ceramic products of the oriental style, one will do well , to
move up the end of the Attic Dipylon culture and to keep at least the
VII century free from it.
If we have named the vessel finds uniformly, then
(p.138) this does not contradict the fact that, in addition to the
class of vases with painted geometric ornaments that are often
discussed, there is a smaller group with very different techniques.
This includes the small, bulbous jug with a three-leaf mouth and the
small amphora from grave VI, which are shown on p. 114, as well as the
sherd of an Aryballus from grave IX (p. 118, fig. 11). Brückner saw the
best example of this genus in 1889 in Küluri on Salamis in the
possession of the merchant Ioannis Soteriu, who found it with about 10
painted dipylon vessels while digging in the basement of his house. It
is shown in Fig. 31 according to a sketch [6].
In
its delicate proportions - it is 11 cm high -, its black-grey very thin
clay and in the incised lines, the aryballos agrees perfectly with the
vessels of tomb VI. Not to be separated from the (p.139) dipylon vases
according to their forms, the new group of vases belongs to the old
monochrome technique in terms of clay and decoration, indeed, it seems
that their thoroughly black clay is still in the smoke fire
characteristic of these been burned. But they are only rudiments of
this technique, which appears on them in a particularly well-developed,
refined form. A related vessel is the small Aryballos from Rhodes in
the Berlin Museum, fig. Jahrbuch IS. 135 No. 3049 [7]. It is strange to
see remnants of the monochrome technique appearing in Attica even after
the decline of the Mycenaean culture, since, apart from Aeolis and
Etruria, this had long been superseded in general by the Mycenaean way
of painting light clay vessels. As few as the examples of this kind are
so far, they point to the technique which the ancestors of the dipylon
potters must have practiced before they had approached the Mycenaean
patterns [8]. If one undertakes to put together the vessel forms and
ornaments of the Dipylon pottery in a clear and complete manner, one
will certainly come across remnants of the monochrome technique among
them also on painted hydria (cf. tomb VII. XIV) often on the shoulder.
The predilection for animals, horses, birds and the like attached to
the vessels seems to be something that dipylon ceramics have in common
with monochrome ones. Should the straight lines of the painted dipylon
ornaments have their reason in the scratching technique practiced
before painting?
In
addition to the thong vessels of the Geometric style, a bronze
cauldron, iron weapons (p.140), works on bone with deepened patterns,
ivory figures, golden diadems and finally a few small porcelain figures
have been found in the tombs. Certainly only the last ones can count as
imported. So far we see no compelling reason to separate the
manufacture of the other items from the homestead of the Dipylon Vases.
According to what has been said above, the ornaments of the bony strips
are in complete agreement with those of the vases, and the elfin
figures also fit into the circle of dipylon art through their body
shapes, through the meandering pattern of the stephane and their
barbaric iron mounts, so the naked women they depict seem strange, even
up to now. It seems advisable to wait for further finds before deciding
whether the type of standing naked women, who now lack the closest
parallels to the naked women of the vases, is related to the Cycladic
figures, which according to Wolters' investigations [9] are also on
were widespread on the mainland, and whether we have the right to
recognize Aphrodite in the female figure adorned with Stephane.
What
is particularly instructive about the gold diadems with the stamps of
lions and animal fights and spiral ornaments is that they are combined
with strictly geometric vases, a fact first observed by Hirschfeld and
further discussed by Furtwangler [10]. Given the contradiction in style,
it would seem logical to ascribe the gold diadems to imports, but
genuine dipylon patterns can also be found on them; the animal stripes
are followed by meanders, a headdress like that from Eleusis, Έφημερίς
άρχ. 1885 pl. 9, 3 is certainly good gold work, which entirely shares
its pattern with the dipylon vases. Thus the consensus leads to the
fact that the gold diadems are Attic work (p.141). If we now find the
oriental patterns already added to the geometric ornaments on the
diadems, this seems to be explained by the fact that the Attic
goldsmiths' guild, more advanced than the vase painters, had already
adopted the oriental patterns when the vase painters were still quite
were caught up in the geometric. It will not have been incalculable
time before the vase-painters followed the goldsmiths in their new
direction, and viewed in this way the discovery of the animal-decorated
diadems would furnish proof that our dipylon tombs can be dated to the
most recent part of the Geometric epoch.
If
one surveys the entirety of the graves, which have been furnished with
unequal care, the variety of crockery is so great that we can use the
graves to restore the household effects of a family from the Dipylon
period. The large storage containers illustrate the two pithoi, which
must have served as coffins. The pots, blackened by soot, lead us to
the hearth fire, one of which is well preserved from the two adjacent
children's graves IX and X. They will be buried with the food that was
prepared in them. A third vessel made of the same brittle clay was
contained in tomb Vll. It was of a larger shape than the two pots, but
could not be restored. The wide, low bowls, which are almost always
included, were used to enjoy the food. In two cases, remains of bones
that had nothing to do with the skeleton were found in them. The low
boxes, closed with lids, may have been intended for the same purpose.
There are bowls and cups and mugs of the most varied shapes as drinking
dishes, and several bowls were also added in order to be able to
separate food and drink from one another. But what use is the cup if
there isn't a jug and krater and (p.142) amphora with it? And the
toilet was also taken care of by the addition of oil bottles and jars.
Although
it now seems to us that the vases found were only procured for the
purpose of burial, it cannot be concluded from this that the crockery
of an Athenian of the eighth century looked different from what appears
in the tombs as is the case in reality, depending on the coarser or
finer use, there are vessels made of coarser or more delicate clay,
simpler or more richly decorated. Entirely without adornment of the
coarsest uncleaned clay are those which have been exposed to the use of
fire. The large pithoi set into the ground are heavy and only roughly
decorated, but everything that belongs on the dining table or near it
consists of the fine brown dipylonthon and is painted all over. Since
the amphorae (grave N. XIII) are closest to the pithoi as storage
vessels, they are also kept in the simplest way in painting: horizontal
stripes run across the body, the space around the neck is decorated
with a simple ornament, e.g. B. a few simple circles. The bowls and
dishes, the cups and bowls are more richly ornamented, but the drinker
has not yet had an opportunity to practice the art of explanation on
his cup. For painting still only knows the picture on a few, very
specific occasions and is otherwise limited to silent ornaments, among
which only seldom does a mythical creature stray. A bowl like that from
grave V is unique among our finds. But their adornment does not
contradict the experience that the dipylon masters still limited the
representation of events to those that are closely related to the
special use of the vessel. Because the fact that the bowl was used to
donate to the gods may have prompted the affixing of the image of the
procession.
p.143) When examining the crockery of a Dipylon
family and their deceased, two types of vessels stand out because of
their particularly rich decoration, i.e. their special preciousness:
the large tombstones, which lead beyond the area of the household
utensils, and the high hydriai in the tomb, which we not yet mentioned
in this overview. Occasionally burnt bones have been collected into
them, as in Eleusis [11], but in our graves we found them empty:
however, a comparison with related vessels of a more developed form
will give us information both about their former content and their
special place in the cult of the dead .
In
four graves (VII, XII, XIII, and XIV), a hydria was found standing upright
in a corner, the shape of which corresponds to the special feature of
the elaborate lid with the small cup placed on top. The round body, the
high neck and the lid are densely covered with ornaments, the outer
surface of the handle of one hydria (VII) is filled with coils, like a
snake. A similar high vessel was also in grave XV. A few decades after
our graves, the hydria has been transformed into the form that the
vessel from Analatos (Jahrbuch 11 p. 4) has. The body has become
slimmer, a few handles are attached to both sides, the eastern palmette
ornaments proliferate on the main strip, the old shapelessness of the
neck has given way and this is closed as with an overhanging plate; the
painter chose the area of the neck for the picture of a choir. But he
has remained true to the old snake ornament, he places it even more
artistically and impressively on all three handles and around the mouth
of the vessel in sublime work. Closely related to this vessel, although
still purely geometric, is another from Attica, which was recently
acquired for the Berlin Museum (p.144) [12]. He has a second handle
attached to his neck. The pictorial decoration is closely related to
the tomb. Like the clay tombs, it represents the parts of the funeral
procession, wailing men and women, wagons and warriors, so that one
could think of the vessel itself as a tomb, if a jug were not stuck in
its neck and proved that it was placed in the grave for the use of the
dead.
The so-called prothesis vases of the VI century BC have
now developed from these vessels. The old basic form has been preserved
in them [13]. The slender body, the two handles, the snake ornament on
them and around the muzzle are a legacy from bygone times. With freer
drawing and better colors, the master also paints the lamentation for
the dead on the neck and belly of the amphora, he still fills in a
lower strip, which remains under the main surface, with chariots and
scenes of horsemen, although Solon with his restrictive laws had
certainly put an end to such glittering corpse pomp in the meantime.
Certainly an impressive testimony to the firmness of the spell in which
the Attic potter progressed incessantly in his craft, but tradition
nonetheless held him. The later development of this form of vessel from
the prosthetic vases is known. Beyond them leads the amphorae (Ath.Mitt. XVI p. 372 and Arch. Zeitung
1882 p. 131). The originally clumsy vessel has gradually become one
with a pleasing structure and delicate outline, too delicate for its
shape to correspond to practical use. If, despite this, the bridal bath
is still being fetched from the Kallirroe spring and the vessel then
remains in the young woman's room, this can only be explained by
loyalty to the old custom and the (p.145) dominating influence that the
slimmer marble lutrophors had on the form of the clay ones at the time.
Because according to Wolters' explanation in these communications (Ath.Mitt.
XVI p. 371 ff.) there is no longer any doubt that in this special
vessel we have to recognize the lutrophoros, in which the water for the
bridal bath was taken and which was used to place on the grave of
unmarried people. Looking at the existence of the custom starting with
the prosthetic vases, Wolters limited himself to leaving open the
question of what the strange symbolism of the lutrophoros on the grave
and the bridal bath offered to the deceased actually mean. He added to
this (p. 399): 'I believe that we must content ourselves with not
finding a simple thought clearly thought through to the end, especially
so long as the historical origin of the custom remains unknown to us'.
The fact that the custom went back to earlier times was also clear to
Wolters from the fact that a vessel of the same shape, albeit only
painted with Corinthian animal ornaments, was used for the burial
sacrifices of the Vurva burial mound [14]. But now the custom can be
traced back to the Geometric period. There we find what is later on the
grave, in the grave: instead of a practically unusable symbol, the
flydria stands in the midst of food bowls and oil jugs, the lid well
closed, a scoop in the neck, the handle prepared for easier carrying.
There is no doubt that these vessels, heavily filled, were carried to
the grave and thus buried in it. So the bath, the offering of which is
only hinted at in the sixth and fifth centuries, was actually given to
the dead two centuries earlier (p. 146). It is added to the donations
and sacrifices and with them provides the clearest proof of how it was
important at the time to take care of the physical well-being of the
dead.
The
question arises whether the lutrophoros was already limited to the
graves of the unmarried in the Dipylon period. If that were the case,
we would have to regard the five graves mentioned above as those of
unmarried couples. Based on the monuments, no decision can be reached
so far, at least the grave finds to be discussed here are not suitable
for providing reliable information. The hydria was not found in the
children's graves. But that does not necessarily speak against it,
since it can be thought that the custom was preferably observed in the
case of deceased people of marriageable age. For the limitation of the
custom to the unmarried, one can cite on the one hand the particularly
rich decoration with which these vessels were distinguished from
everyday vessels such as the amphora, and on the other hand the picture
of the hydria by Analatos, which in this context can be understood as a
wedding choir after which, if we remember the funeral procession on the
Berlin amphora, the lutrophors of the V and IV centuries not only
inherited the form and the snake ornament, but also the two main themes
of their painted pictures from the dipylon lutrophors, the wedding
procession and the funeral service.
We have shown the variety of
objects found in dipylon tombs, and in the next chapter the uniformity
of custom in the fifth and fourth centuries will be contrasted with
this. Even in the Dipylon period rich furnishings were not always
placed in the dwelling of the dead; Rather, one recognizes that here
and there a certain restriction was observed, that adding one or two
vessels seemed enough for many to fulfill the custom. One also believes
that the Attic thriftiness, which later apparently (p.147) prevented
burying valuable jewelery in the ground, was felt in the choice of
grave goods; for it is striking that, apart from the thin gold sheets
of diadems, the frequent addition of which could have been prompted by
the rite of crowning the prosthesis in particular, other jewelry does
not occur very often and does not exceed a few brooches in the graves
described is even completely missing, while in Boeotia, which always
glorified the dead with greater pomp, a large number of bronze fibulae
were found together in the individual graves and also richer bronze
jewelry together with geometric vases [15].
However,
even if in such limitations of the additions we see the influence of a
more sober view of the what is due to the dead, on the other hand, the
findings of our graves show how vividly people were still convinced
that the furnishings of the grave would benefit the deceased in the
afterlife. Nor is the man buried with his arms; we know of no later
Attic tomb in which weapons were found. As we have seen, besides the
many other dishes, there is still the lutrophoros with the water for
bathing and the pot that was taken from the fire full of food (IX. X)
and we still find the bones from the bull sacrifice [2] ( πρόσφαγαα),
which Solon first banned. These are testimonies for a fresh originality
of the death cult, which are reminiscent of the old κτέρεα κτερεΐζειν
and illustrate what is handed down about the pre-Solonic funeral
ceremony in the pseudo-Platonic Minos, where it says [3]: οίσθά που καί
αυτό ς άκούων οίοις νόαοις έχρώ- ρ.εθα προ του περί τους άποθανόντας,
ίερεϊά τε προσφάττοντες πρό (p.148) της εκφοράς του νεκρού καί
εγχυτριστρίας (Λεταπερ,πόί/,ενοΓ οί δ' αύ εκείνων ετι πρότεροι αυτού
καί έ'θαπτον έν τη οικία τούς άποΟανόν- τας- ημείς όε τούτων ονόϊν
ποιον μεν Among the businesses which, according to the informant of the
Scholiast to Plato and the Etymologicum Magnum, fell to the
έγχυτρίστριαι assumed at the funeral, it will probably also have been
heard that they were carrying the heavy lutrophores to the grave.
Of
the nineteen dipylon graves that we have seen, only one (III) contained
an urn with burned bones, and the assurances of Greek local antiquaries
correspond to this ratio, who claim not to have seen any προϊστορικός
τάφος with a burned corpse [16]. On the other hand, Helbig says, and
others have followed him, that in the dipylon graves the more recent
use of cremation prevails, referring to Gustav Hirschfeld's report on
the excavations on the property adjacent to our graves [17]. But
Hirschfeld himself gives no evidence that cremation predominated over
burial. His assumption that in the Dipylon period there was no
distinction between burial and cremation is based on the fact that,
next to a grave with a buried corpse, around which many geometric vases
stood, he saw another grave whose sole content was coal and ashes
without any additions, the would have made it possible to determine the
time. He himself says (p. 167): deve per altro notarsi, che i vasi si
trovarono solcunente presso lo scheletro, mentre la tomba del combusto
pare ne fosse dei tutto privci. He therefore concludes from the same
depth that the graves are also of the same age. But how little this
conclusion is justified will be shown by the figures on our plan.
Graves with white lekyths as an addition still reach down to the
dipylon graves and below. From the (p.149) Piraeus Street we know of no
pit grave containing ashes, in which a geometric shard was found, and
no ash urn from a Dipylon grave, apart from the above-mentioned grave
III.
Unfortunately, the only more detailed account of tombs of the Geometric period in Attica is that of Mr. Philios in the Έφηmερίς άρχ. 1889
pp. 171-187 published about excavations that took place in Eleusis. Mr.
Philios summarizes the result of his careful observations on cremation
and burial by writing (p. 186): ταφή δέ καί o'r/i καυσις των νεκρών ήν
έν'εκείνοις το ΐς χοόνοις το έ-ικρατέστερον έ'θος. Only in one or two
graves was the burning indisputably from the outset; he explained many
other traces of fire [18] and urns with burned bones in the area of the
graves as originating from dead victims and skeletons. These latter
were said to have been burned only when the grave was reused to make it
free for a new corpse, and buried in an urn next to the new corpse;
similar i.e. as in the sixth shaft grave of Mycenae excavated by
Starnatakis, where the bones of one dead man have been cleared aside so
that the other could be laid in the middle of the grave. It is not
clear from Mr. Philios' report to what extent this representation is
based on the facts of the find and to what extent it is only a
hypothesis, but it would be very gratifying if a confirmation could be
gained. For if that were the case, we would then be enlightened as to
the motives for which the Greeks came to burn the corpses. What other
intention could the (p.150) burning of the skeleton have been
undertaken than to render the previous owner of the grave
harmless? Findings that would lead to this would provide
confirmation of E. Rohde's view that Homer's time cultivated cremation
because they wanted to use the violence of the fire to banish the
spirits into the depths in order to be free from their work.
Our
finds agree with the observations of Mr. Philios that burial was far
more common in the Geometric epoch than cremation of the corpse. The
usual type of burial was either burial in a simple vessel, a pithos, or
an amphora, which is placed and sealed with a stone slab, also
occasionally surrounded by smaller vessels (cf. X) or protected by a
stone enclosure, or the shaft grave. The various observations made at
Eleusis and Athens agree that the tombs of this period were not in the
habit of being dug very deep, scarcely more than 2 feet below the
ancient surface of the earth. We have remarked in the individual tombs
that the shaft often had a step, which was made so high above the
ground that vessels the height of the hydria could stand upright in the
tomb; it is natural to assume that the step served as a support for a
layer of boards covering the space of the tomb. Thin streaks of color
running across the corpse and the grave goods (VI. XIV.) seemed to come
from painting the ceiling of the tomb. We did not notice any other
signs in the damp soil that pointed to a special arrangement of the
burial chamber: in Eleusis, on the other hand, although the burials
there otherwise seem poorer, the chamber was found surrounded and
covered with rough stone slabs or mud bricks. As in the shaft tombs of
Mycenae, the dead were laid in the space of the tomb and food and
objects were placed around them. It is unlikely that the corpse would
have been enclosed in a coffin, since the (p.151) εκφορά, as the
paintings on the tomb vases show, took place on the kline; nor have any
remains of coffins, as far as we know, been observed. According to the
finds of Mr. Philios, burnt offerings were often performed at the
burial place before the burial [19].
As
far as the tomb is concerned, the particularly favorable local
conditions are described above, which have enabled us to view the
appearance of a tomb from this period. After the tomb was closed, only
a little earth was spread over it, so that a pit remained inside whose
grave vase was placed. In order to emphasize the regularity with which
the large vases are found over the graves, the words of Rayet may be
added here, which go back to the observations of Mr. Paleologos (Ceramique
p. 24): "au dessus cle chaque fasse, entasses en pile, etaient
les de'bris d un grand vase qui, apres avoir send aux ceremonies
funebres, avait ete brise ä dessein, ä coups f rappes du cote interior
au moyen d un instrument contondant, comme serait une liache de
pierre." ("above each end, heaped in a pile, were the remains of
a large vase which, after having been used in the funeral ceremonies,
had been purposely broken by blows struck from the inside with a blunt
instrument, as would be a wad of stone.")
Except that our finds
and the view gained afterwards on p. 95 refute the misconception that
these richest and most precious works of the potters were smashed right
at the burial [2]. In reality, they are σήματα, which served to
distinguish and decorate the graves and at the same time for the
offerings to be made. At that time it was still sufficient for
differentiation and decoration if only ornaments surrounded the body of
the vase, pure ornaments, δαίδαλα πολλά, such as meanders, swastikas
and whatever else the geometric (p.152) sample treasure offers: as well
as some of the Mycenaean funerary steles contain nothing more than
geometric patterns without pictorial representation. But according to
the numerous remains, it was probably more common for the πρόθεσή and
the εκφορά to be painted in great detail, and very often in a lower
stripe the ship battles.
In
the treatment of these latter representations, the point of view that
what we have of such pictures derives precisely from tombstones has not
yet been emphasized. We know of an explanation for why these battles
were chosen to adorn the tomb, only by going through a parallel with
the Attic funerary steles of the VI century. On these, the typical
small field with the image of a horseman under the main field with the
figure of the deceased undoubtedly indicates the knightly status of the
same, neither as has been thought. to victories in the race - because,
as others have already remarked, the victories would be too many, and
one would also have to expect different images for other types of
victories in the same place - nor to the worship of the dead as heroes.
For if that had been the intention, the portrayal of the hero would
have been made the main thing and in the main field the appearance of
the deceased in his human dignity would not have been deprived of the
heroic symbols, and this interpretation would also lead to the absurd
consequence that, the worthy priest Lyseas dashing about in Hades as a
wild hunter. The rider is a slight boy, while the standing figure is
that of an adult [21]. So not the gentleman himself, but the squire
appears in the picture below. It corresponds to this that the Attic
ίππεύς, especially since the old civil ban moved out on foot for so
long, was not so much a horseman as an ίπποτρόφο.
But
the class of the Ιππής first derived their (p.153) state-loving
organization from Solon. Previously, the Athenian citizenship was
divided into naucraries, in which the able-bodied men were mobilized.
Each of them had to provide a ship and, as a special feature, two
riders; that the oarsmen were free is shown by the picture in one of
our vases, in which the oarsmen appear armed with a large shield [22].
The people of war and the oarsmen are identical to those of Homer.
Since the continuity of the development of Attic pottery up to the
dipylon vases has now been proven, and these are thus secured as Attic,
we cannot avoid recognizing the naval battles of the Attic naucraries
in the ship battles of the dipylon vases. And just as the equestrian
image on the steles of the VI century indicates the knightly status of
the deceased, the ship battles on the tombstones two centuries older
will testify that the citizens, whose tombs are decorated in this way,
have fulfilled their military service in the naucraries . It would seem
tempting to limit this adornment to the tombs of the ναύκραροι, the
shipmasters, but it seems that the fragments of vases are too many for
that. Thus our monuments give clearer and more reliable information
about the nature of the Attic community of the Homeric period than the
scholars of antiquity have handed down to us. To be sure, after the
change of times, especially after the reorganization of the fleet, it
was difficult even for an Athenian like Thucydides to form an idea of
those relationships that had long since disappeared. Perhaps only one
landmark was preserved from the old days when the Attic citizenry
presented itself as a traveling fleet: the ship on which the goddess
Athena was offered the peplos.
But
back to the tombs in our cemetery. In addition to the vase, a funerary
stele occasionally stood at the grave pit. But the stones are still so
rough and (p.154) plain that they have certainly sometimes been ignored
as tombstones. Mr. Philios found several of the kind [23] in one case
particularly clearly, the stone stood close to the pit, thus as in the
tomb of Agamedes according to the description of Pausanias: έστίν έν τώ
άλσει τω έν Λεβαδεία βόθρος τε Ά γααήδους καλούμενος καί προς αΰτώ
στηλη (Paus. IX, 37.7 cf. 39.6). In our cemetery, two such stelae lay
on top of each other, safely in the pit next to the large vessel above
Grave III. All of these stones are still without any decoration, just
as Koldewey also observed them in the Neandria necropolis and as they
have become known from very ancient inscriptions from the Cyclades [24].
They are the raw archetypes of later artistic stelae.
Decorating
the grave with a stele and tymbos is a requirement of the epic in honor
of the deceased. The Athenians followed this custom from the 7th
century onwards, but the Tymbos in Attica cannot be traced back to the
earlier period. The tumuli that have been excavated have revealed
altogether younger burial sites from the time of more frequent
cremation. In our excavation field, the course of the upper strata over
no grave of the Geometric period spoke for a former earthen monument;
on the contrary, the course of the fire layer above graves I, II, III,
as can be seen on the section on p. 87, shows that the ground above and
around the graves remained level. One might be tempted to assume that
the ground was leveled here to prepare the sacrificial site and that
older burial mounds were removed in the process. But that is completely
ruled out by the fact observed by Mr. Palaeologos otherwise and by us
in the present case, that the vases, which are now secured as tombs,
are regularly found vertically above the tomb and only about 1 m above
(p.155) the bottom of the tomb. The vase undoubtedly remained visible,
making the tumulus impossible.
The purpose of the vase,
especially in the monumental form in which we find it at this stage of
the cult of the dead and of Attic pottery, is certainly on the one hand
to decorate the grave, to serve as a μνήμα, which announces the κλέος
of the deceased and the family left behind; At that time the stonemason
had not yet found the form to express this thought; this task still
fell to the much more busy potter. Originally, however, the vase was
not placed on the tomb for the sake of its image, but for its form, and
the wide craters and amphorae on the tombs of the Geometric period,
which are placed deep in the pit, will have initially served to hold
the offering for the dead, although they certainly looked simpler at
first. For this very reason the bottom of the large vessels is pierced
and their foot hollow, as observed by Hirschfeld and St. Kumanudis [25],
also by Brückner; For this very reason, just like the έσχχρχ of the
heroes, the vase lacks its own base so that the donation can flow
unhindered into the ground and down to the dwelling place of the dead
[26].
Thus,
the finds on the Piraeus Street still make it possible to regain the
basic features of the external appearance of the oldest, actually
Attic, tombs. The graves of the Geometric epoch in a landscape of
mainland Greece show that the cult of the dead was cultivated beyond
the burial with the firm belief that the subterranean could always be
satisfied with food and drink. As we may say, ever since Erwin Rhode
developed for us the Homeric soul cult and what preceded it from the
epic, this is not a Homeric doctrine (p.156) but an older custom and
conviction. Only when the geometric epoch was superseded by that in
which the 'oriental' ornaments and the representation of mythological
and epic materials in ceramics appeared, only in this period do we find
the custom of death in force in Attica, which corresponds to the
descriptions and views of the epic [27].
Footnotes:
1. Annali 1872 pp. 136, 176.
2. Words from Helbig, Homer. Epos 2 p. 75. Loeschcke, Annali 1878 p. 311L
Loeschcke's evidence for the late use of dipylong vessels is of a very
questionable nature. Pauvel's excavation report proves nothing: from
our plan it can be seen that tombs of the IVth century and white
lekythoi are occasionally deeper than geometric graves. If the circle and
zigzag are still found on the Francois vase on the amphora which
Dionysus adores Peleus, then there are only isolated ornamental
remains. which are not to be looked upon otherwise than the serpent on
the Lutrophoros; see below. The proof that Furtwangler thought he had
found for the later survival of geometric decoration he now no longer
acknowledges; cf. Olympia IV Test p. 83. Journal of Ethnology 1889 p.
232 (Undset). On shipbuilding in the Dipylon period see now Pernice,
Ath Mitt XVII p. 283 ff. There is now also Athens apart from the pot.
military VI Plate 3 Dipylon vases with inscriptions: B. Graf, Arch.
Anzeiger 1893 p. 17.
3. Δελτίον 1890 plates Δ, 5. Cf. also Ath. Mitt. XVIII p. 56.
4. So also E. Curtius, Stadtgeschichte von Alben p. 184 Note 2: ‘The fleet
battles on the dipylon vases are also historical monuments from the
time after the Lelantic War’.
5. Ath. Mitt. XVII Plate 10.
6.
It should be added to the given drawing that the original sketch
leaves unclear whether the vessel has two or one handle.
7. Parallels from Etruria: Hirschfeld, Annali 1872 p. 177 f. Gsell, Fouilles dans la necropole de Vulci p. 60 Plate II, a-g.
8. See B. Gräf, Arch. Anzeiger 1893 p. 16,
9. Ath.Mitt. 1891 p. 46 ff. Cf. also the bronzes from Olympia: Olympia IV No. 259 ff. and Furtwangler, bronze finds p. 31.
10. Annali 1872 p. 154. 1880 p. 130.
11. Έφημερίς Aρχ. 1889 S. 178 Anm. 2, S. 179 (Philios).
12. Arch. Anzeiger 1892 p. 100 no. 4.
13. E.g. Monumenti III, plate 60. Furtwängler, Sabouroff Collection on plate 58.
14.
See the Lutrophoros in Berlin described by Furtwängler, on which the
handles are characteristically formed by mourners, Arch. Anzeiger 1892 p.100 no. 6 and the one from Marathon, Ath.Mitt. XVIII plate 2.
15. Fibulae from the tombs of the Geometric Era compiled by Studniczka, Ath.mitt. XII p. 14. On Boeotia cf. Böhlau, Jahrbuch III p. 461. Arch. Anzeiger 1891 p. 124 no. 1892 p. 219.
16. So also Mr. Paleologos, although according to Rayet-Collignon, Histoire de la c6ramique grecque p. 23 it might appear otherwise.
17. Helbig, Homer. Epos 2 p. 75. Hirschfeld, Annali 1872 p. 135. 167.
18.
Dipylon vases with burnt bones in them are also said to have been found
by St. Kumanudis near the Themistoclean city wall Πρακτικά
1873/74 p. " ός έως ενός καί ήμίσεος μέτρου ή απλώς εν τη γη
τεθαμμένα ή εν άγγείοις πη λίνοις τεθειμένα μετά την καυσιν ικροΐς, τά
δέ άλλα άπλώς κε^ωσμέν άνευ τινός κατασκευής." ("up to one and a half meters or simply buried in the earth or
placed in pots of clay after the burning of the ikrois, and the others
simply left without any structure.") Philios also doubts that the bones in the vessels were all burned (p. 186, note 4).
19. Cf. E. Rhode, Psyche p. 32.
20. It seems that so
far outside of Attica we have only been able to find evidence of
similarly large, richly decorated vessels used as tombs in Boeotia (Έφηmερίί άρχ. 1892 pl. 8-10) and on Cyprus. So Perrot-Chipiez, Histoire de L'art III p. 711 no. 523; Helbig, Homer. Epic 2 p. 12U. The imported dipylon vessel from Kurion was not found over a pit, but in a rock chamber.
21. Cf. especially Conze, Attische Grabreliefs Plate IX, 2; cf. on plate I text a. B.
22. Ath.Mitt. XVII S. 303.
23. Έφηmερίς άρχ. 1889 p. 176 A. 8. 179 M. p. 184 N.
24. Koldewey, Neandria 8. 17 Fig. 30. From Araorgos: Ath Mitt. XI p. 99. Bull. de corr. Hellenic. XV p. 598
25. Annali 1872 p. 161. Πρακτικά 1873/74 p. 18.
26. Cf. Rhode, Psyche p. 33.
27. Cf. the explanations in the lecture Arch. Anzeiger 1892 p. 21.
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