Classics Colloquium with Eirini Dimitriadou

Join us for a presentation by Eirini Dimitriadou on "Burials in Tumuli in Classical Eastern Attica: The Case of a New Cemetery near the Athens Airport in the Mesogeia Plain."

Tea at 4 p.m. in the Quita Woodward Room.

Click here to register for the Zoom meeting.

Rescue excavations conducted by the Ephorate of Eastern Attica revealed a classical cemetery organised in tumuli (burial mounds) at the center of the Mesogeia plain in Eastern Attica, in contact with the SE corner of the International Airport of Athens (El. Venizelos). The excavations brought to light a cluster of three tumuli situated on both sides of an ancient crossroad.  Opposite them, next to a second intersection of three roads and near a small ‘shrine’ another group of graves was excavated. The finds coming from the tombs, although fragmented by successive looting even in antiquity, testify, besides the wealth of the classical cemetery, the existence of a burial site/ground at the same place since the Middle Geometric period. The tumuli burials were organized in oikos/families, as usual, and include inhumations, primary cremations and pithos burials. This new cemetery is further evidence for the constitution of "multinuclear" demoi all over the Mesogeia plain, suggesting that the countryside was sparsely populated in comparison to Athens. 

Greek, Latin, and Classical Studies