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Ex Attica by Constantinos Kourouniotou
[Article originally published in 1911 in Arch. Ephemeris 1911 pp.246-256]
Excavations of burials at Paleo Phaleron.
At
the suggestion of the resident of Athens, B. Nostrakis, an excavation
was attempted at the expense of the Ministry of Ecclesiastes at the
Voidolivados site of Paleo Phaleron. The excavation took place about
200 meters away from the sea, to the NW of the Botanical Garden and
near the point where the new Syngrou Avenue separates from the old
Athens-Phaliros road (Karta AIIIKA B1. III near the second i of the
word Misia.
[Editor's note: Phaleron, located on the
Mediterranean coast south of Athens, was the original port of ancient
Athens. It is less distant from the city than Piraeus,
which Themistocles converted into the main port in the 5th c. BC.
The ancient port area of Phaleron retained the name Paleo Phaleron]
There,
over a large area, it is very barren, being almost on the same level as
the sea, or only slightly rising above it, for this reason it does not
always have the appearance of a marsh rather dried up. Some tombs were
in the water (fig.3). The soil consists entirely of fine sand. Many
pits and fragments of large vessels scattered on the surface testify to
the large-scale clandestine grave digging carried out there.
Also, the site of Analatos, where the well-known amphora was found (Bohlau op.cit.
p.34) is not very far from our cemetery. With all the great damage
caused to the cemetery by the illegal vessels previously looted by
gravediggers, I hope, however, that the future radical excavation will
be instructive and will contribute to the finding of important vessels.
Fig.3 (top) : Tomb (amphorae) in water.
Fig.5 (bottom): Brick partition of graves
The
area excavated this year has an area of approximately twelve square
meters. Sixty-eight densely placed graves were found here, of
forty-four small children (p.246) buried inside amphorae, two small
children buried in the ground without a visible new enclosure, a small
child buried inside a small clay urn, and the other twenty also for
people at an advanced age. Of the last five, there were pyres, one of
which had been collected in a large pithos, and the other was a
geometrical amphora (height 0.45 m; fig.4), while only the burnt bones
were collected, and the others had the dead simply buried in the sand
without any (p.247) visible casing, or were graves made of moderately
processed thin porous slabs placed upright against the sides without a
special layer of mint at the base and covered by similar porous slabs.
Stone marks or buildings on the
graves or around them were not observed, only in one place there is a
small brick wall approximately 0'80 high preserved up to a length of 2
meters, which is most likely the partition of a group of graves, in
fact three graves of small children were found behind it (two amphorae
and a laranax), and nearby another dead man without a shroud
(fig.5).
Fig.4: Funerary amphora with geometrical painted decoration containing the remains of a dead body.
The
amphorae in which the dead children were placed usually had the shape
of those depicted in figs.5-7. They are made of
well-fired clay and covered with red or blackish clay; (p 248). their
usual size is between 0.80 and 0.60 m, the opening of the mouth of most
up to 0.18 m, some up to 0.35 m and the circumference of the body
between 0.45 and 0.55m.On many of them, where the mouth was
not wide enough, as the skeleton was pushed into the vessel, a large
heart-shaped piece was carefully cut out on one side, usually a
heart-shaped piece, so that after the body was inserted, the opening
was covered again (fig.7).
Fig.6 and 7: Tomb (amphorae) of a small child.
On
both (p.249) sides of the neck of the amphorae there is almost
always a typical ornament consisting of two small concentric circles
between a few vertical V-shaped lines or concentric triangles between
similar V-shaped lines. Apart from these, they also
have decorative lines encircling the middle of the vessel body.
A few amphorae had the shape of the well-known Neton amphora, although they did not have the neck jewel.
Two
of the amphorae were made of pieces connected by lead. In addition to
these amphorae made of good clay and well baked, there were also other
amphorae, as well as clay jars (see fig.3) made of uncoated clay of
more moderate quality.
The amphorae were usually tilted in the
sand (see fig. 3 and 5) supported and sometimes by stones on the sides,
their mouths were usually exposed by the lower part of other similar
broken amphorae, or more rarely by slabs. Once there was used as a
cover a whole large hydria (height 0.40 m without neck and, and
body diam. 0 40 m) having a red ganoma and a circle and spiral on
the top of the body. Often two or more amphorae were found placed
almost next to each other.
Besides these
amphorae, or more often outside of them, instead of the neck, there is
almost always a small cup and one or two oenochoi, and more rarely a
compass like a bombylus.
The tombs built with porous slabs
usually had no top or crowning, more rarely only a small geometric
vessel inside one of them was found, including a broken geometric
goblet, as shown in fig 8 on the right of the Corinthian oenochoe
depicted at an angle. And inside the pyres only a few pieces of vessels
were found. The geometric amphora shown above in fig.4, containing the
burnt bones of a dead person, had no lid, only a geometric bottle of
known shape and decoration which was used as its cap.
Fig.8 (above): Grave vessels from Phaleron (ht. 0.16 m)
Fig.9 (below): Grave vessels from Phaleron (ht. 0.09 m)
Examples of the vessels found in these tombs are
provided in figs.8 and 9. These are late geometric vessels, early Attic
protoliths of the so-called Phaleric type, and genuine Corinthian
vessels or vessels made in imitation of them. These are always found
next to each other without being able to distinguish between tombs with
only one category of vessels.
Among
the graves, in a pile of rubble, possibly coming (p.249) from graves
destroyed and now unknown, pieces of geometric, early Attic vases were
found, as well as those of the category of the second series of Vourvas
vases. Similarly, a (fig.10) protocorinthian lekythos was recovered.
Only a few pieces of melanoform vessels were found. On the neck of an
amphora, which had also once been used as a tomb, the letters HERGOS
were engraved in later times (during the 5th century BC).Fig. 10: Protocorinthian lekythos found in Phaleron burial.
Fig. 11: Fragment of amphora from Phaleron with scene of chariot performance
Figs.12 and 13: Fragments of the Attic amphora shown in fig.11.
Part
of a vessel (fig.11) welded together from several small pieces comes
from a beautiful amphora of the shape probably of a known amphora
(Ethn. museum no. 898; Couvee - Colignon no. 210 plate XI). It
shows a performance consisting of chariots, among which stand men
gesticulating vigorously.
The scene resembles, in terms of chariots and
horses, exactly that of the Munich vase (Jahrbuch
1907 p. 79 image 2); only the men's clothing is different, while in
terms of the decoration that fills the field, the representations of
the two vases agree.
In our image, the figures that lead the
two horse chariot are distinguished from those who drive
the chariot. The clay of the vessel is yellowish, and the
images are engraved with dark black ware, but there is also red and
white coloring (p. 250) .
Figs.14 and 15: Fragments of Attic bottles or flasks from Phaleron graves.
From
the neck of this vessel comes the fragment of fig.12; does it seem that
this image portrays a battle? A figure of a man is shown with a
round shield and going to the right, while holding his hands high.
Similarly the fragment of fig.13 also comes from this vessel.
The
pieces of fig.14 as well as fig.15 most probably come from early Attic
bottles of the ommetrical shape, such as shown in Couve Collignon,
Vases peints XIV 267.
Somewhat crude, thickened geometric clay figurines are shown in figs. 16 + 17.
figs. 16 and 17: Clay geometric figurines from Phaleron graves (height 0.06 m).
Of
the geometric pieces of vases found, the piece in fig. 18 with a horse,
perhaps coming from a flat rim of a vessel, and the other image of the
same one, where a dead warrior is depicted at the feet of another
warrior, are worth noting.Also
among the fragments shown in fig.19, on one of these (at upper
left) is depicted a ship, clearly a bireme, with two rows of oars (cf.
Pernice in Jahrbuch 1900 p. 94, based on a nearly complete pottery figure of a manned bireme).
Figs. 18 and 19: Fragments of geometric vessels found in the graves at Phaleron.
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