Athenian burial practices and cultural change: the Rundbau early plot in the Kerameikos cemetery revisited

At the turn of the seventh century, Athenian burial practices underwent a series of changes, including a decline in the number of graves, the advent of primary cremation and offering-ditches, and the disappearance of weapon burials. The main source of information for an analysis of burial customs is, once more, the Kerameikos cemetery. Here a particularly informative context is the early Rundbau plot and other burials next to it, dug into an area included within the Eridanos river bed and the path preceding the Sacred Way. The plot has produced a unique sequence of burials, beginning in Late Geometric IIb and continuing into the early sixth century, some of which contained rare bronze objects of both Greek and eastern (or orientalizing) production. These objects include double walled embossed bowls comparable to those from Etruscan princely tombs, and a badly preserved object of thin embossed bronze sheet, decorated with snakes, which may be a belt reproducing an Urartian pattern. A horse-burial completes the unusual picture. This chapter adopts a contextual perspective to bring together an archaeological record excavated at different times and published separately, thus allowing the totality of the evidence to be exploited as an historical and cultural source. The conclusion is that the burying group could have included individuals of high status and non-Athenian origin, who were integrated within a local descent group. Burial ritual creates cultural references and a network of correspondences worthy of analysis and explanation.