In­tro­duc­tion to the dis­cov­ery

Stella Chrys­soulaki, Ioan­nis Pap­pas

The Phaleron Delta ceme­tery is spa­tially de­lim­ited by the sandy de­posits of Phaleron Bay, most of which are not vis­i­ble to­day due to the con­tin­u­ous earth­works that were ini­tated at the be­gin­ning of the last cen­tury and con­tinue un­in­ter­rupt­edly to this day. Ex­ca­va­tions at the ceme­tery be­gan in the late 19^th cen­tury,^[1] con­tin­ued in the early years of the 20^th cen­tury^] and are be­ing pur­sued to this day af­ter a 100-year hia­tus.^[3] (Fig.1) It is a spa­tially ex­tended coastal ceme­tery, out­side of the bound­aries and the walls of Athens, but very close to its first har­bour.^[4] Based on the ex­ca­va­tion data, the pe­riod of its use can be placed from the last decades of the 8^th cen­tury BC un­til the 4^th cen­tury BC.^[5]

Fig.1: The lo­ca­tion of the ceme­tery, the prob­a­ble to­tal area, as seen in the ac­tual Phaleron Bay from NW.^[6] ©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

A to­tal of 2115 buri­als have been dis­cov­ered, most of them ex­ca­vated un­der the su­per­vi­sion of the Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pi­raeus and Is­lands, dur­ing cam­paigns caused by the con­struc­tion of the Stavros Niar­chos Foun­da­tion Cul­tural Cen­ter (2012-2020). (Fig.2) The ex­am­ined parts of the ceme­tery cover more than 1 hectare. All types of buri­als of the pe­riod in ques­tion are rep­re­sented, such as pit graves in the sand, buri­als in reused clay pots (pot buri­als), cist graves made of lo­cal lime­stone slabs, fu­neral pyres, buri­als in small clay tubs (lar­nakes) and buri­als cov­ered by tile bricks (tile graves). An­i­mals also lie buried among the hu­man graves, mainly equines which do not seem to ac­com­pany their own­ers.

Fig.2: East­ern part of the ceme­tery (Es­planade Sec­tor) re­vealed in 2016. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

Dur­ing the ex­ca­va­tions of 1915, the re­mains of mass buri­als of peo­ple who had suf­fered the pun­ish­ment of apo­tym­pa­nis­mos, was ex­posed, the ear­li­est known mass-bur­ial of ex­e­cuted peo­ple in At­tica.^[7] The re­cent ex­ca­va­tions re­vealed a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of fur­ther mass- or in­di­vid­ual buri­als of vic­tims of a vi­o­lent death (bi­aio­thana­toi). (Fig.3)

Fig.3: View of mass buri­als from the a) NW Sec­tor and b) the Es­planade Sec­tor. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

In its south­west­ern part of the Sec­tor, a mass bur­ial of 79 cap­tives was found, arranged in three trenches (Fig.5). In Trench A, 39 cap­tives were found laid in rows, tied to­gether in groups, and man­a­cled at their wrists (Fig.6). Two oinochoai, dated to the 7^th cen­tury BC, were found by the lower limbs of two of the in to­tal 46 in­di­vid­u­als of the Trench A.^[8] An ad­di­tional seven in­di­vid­u­als were dis­cov­ered at the south­ern end of Trench A, buried with their arms tied be­hind their backs (Fig.7). Their pos­ture also dif­fered from the 39, as they were found in a lat­eral po­si­tion with their lower limbs bent at right an­gles.

Fig.4: The ex­ca­va­tion area of the Es­planade Sec­tor, view from N. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

Fig.5: The mass bur­ial of 79 cap­tives (2016), view from S. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

Fig.6: The 39 cap­tives of the first Trench A, view from SW. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

Fig.7: The seven in­di­vid­u­als at the south-east­ern part of the Trench A, view from SE. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

The sec­ond trench was lo­cated east of Trench A . There, 16 in­di­vid­u­als were found with their arms tied be­hind their backs (Fig.8); two of them wore a metal ring on the fourth fin­ger of their left hand. In the third trench, care­lessly formed, lay 16 in­di­vid­u­als, tied to­gether by iron shack­les on their wrists (Fig.9). An iron knife was found on one of them, al­most tan­gen­tial and along­side the left tibia, while an ar­row­head was found in the chest of an­other. Un­like the buri­als of the other two trenches, the 16 of the third trench were prob­a­bly ex­e­cuted at the spot, as they seem to have fallen on top of each other af­ter be­ing lined up by the grave and killed. Fur­ther­more, a lime­stone slab, bro­ken into two pieces, was found on top of this third trench. Judg­ing by its lo­ca­tion, it could have been placed as a grave-marker, sema, of this de­viant bur­ial.

Fig.8: Trench B, view from N. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

Fig.9: The 16 cap­tives of Trench C, view from NW. ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.

The con­sid­er­able num­ber of buri­als, the taphon­omy, the ex­cel­lent preser­va­tion of the skele­tons and the ev­i­dence of their dat­ing to the 7^th cen­tury BC, led to an ini­tial in­ter­pre­ta­tion, which sug­gested that the buried could be con­nected to an in­ci­dent at­tested through an­cient lit­er­ary sources.^[9] This first sug­ges­tion aroused the in­ter­est of both the sci­en­tific com­mu­nity and the gen­eral pub­lic around the world and led to a Min­is­te­r­ial De­cree of the tem­po­rary preser­va­tion of the dis­cov­ery in situ, since this part of the ceme­tery was de­fined not only as an ar­chae­o­log­i­cal site but maybe also as a his­tor­i­cal land­mark. At the same time, the ex­ca­va­tors ini­ti­ated im­me­di­ate in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary doc­u­men­ta­tion, since their ex­pe­ri­ence, formed through sev­eral years of work in this par­tic­u­lar ceme­tery, made them re­al­ize just how vul­ner­a­ble the find was. These works made it pos­si­ble to col­lect the avail­able data from the con­text as it was dis­cov­ered, be­fore be­ing af­fected by the new en­vi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions, to which it was ex­posed once ex­ca­vated.

In the face of the chal­lenge of such an im­por­tant dis­cov­ery, the Ephor­ate searched out mod­ern and ac­cu­rate meth­ods of sur­vey­ing and of bioar­chae­o­log­i­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion in its col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Swedish In­sti­tute at Athens (SIA) (Fig.10). The col­lab­o­ra­tion with the team of re­searchers from the SIA proved to be cru­cial, as within a short pe­riod of time it man­aged to com­plete the in situ pre­lim­i­nary bioar­chae­o­log­i­cal field analy­sis of the 79 cap­tives.^[10] At the same time, ra­dio­car­bon analy­ses (C14) were con­ducted in se­lected buri­als, and the re­sults are ex­pected to be pub­lished. More­over, the re­search team also car­ried out a 3D-scan­ning of the mass-grave, of­fer­ing an ex­tremely use­ful tool for study­ing and sav­ing the data avail­able dur­ing the pe­riod which fol­lowed the ex­ca­va­tion.^[11]

Fig.10: Dur­ing the works of the SIA (7/​2016). ^©Hel­lenic Min­istry of Cul­ture and Sports. Ephor­ate of An­tiq­ui­ties of Pireus and Is­lands.