This marvelous museum is located at the northwest of Acropolis. It is a small-scale museum with many interesting findings concerning death and life.

It is ideal for children and teenagers as well as for everyone. I have visited Kerameikos so many times, and every time I leave, I feel that I will come back again. There are objects to see, which we still use or have been replaced, and objects that have become symbols.

Urns: kind of vessels where the remains of a human body were put after the pyre.

Obolus: kind of coin put on the mouth of a dead person as a ticket for Hades.

Sphinx: a mythical creature in a lion’s body having a woman’s head.

Loom weights: weights used at a loom construction.

Tomb markers: various kinds of monuments to mark the place of a burial.

Incense burners: used to burn incense.

Magic bonds: metal sheets with curses written on them against an enemy, a person we want to harm.

Reliefs: made of marble, they depict dead persons.

Pyxis: a box used by the ancient ladies to put jewels or cosmetics.

White-ground lekythos: kind of pottery usually filled with oil for burial use.

Body scraper: athletes used this tool to clean off sweat and dust.

These are some of the findings of the ancient cemetery of Keramikos. They are closely related to the burial and funeral customs.They were either used in everyday life or buried with their owners, or they were made for burial use only.

The area also includes both sides of Dypylon Gate and the Heridanos River. It used to be the potter’s quarter of the city, and there were laboratories that produced pottery, others that produced clothing, and there was also the ancient cemetery. The sacred way, the road to Eleusis, also began from this area.

Thucydides mentions this spot where Pericles delivered his funeral oration.

Archaeological evidence and texts.

In the history written by Thucydides we read: In the same winter the Athenians gave a funeral at the public cost to those who had first fallen in the war according to a custom of their ancestors: Three days before the ceremony the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected and their friends bring to their relatives such offerings as they please. In the funeral procession cypress coffins are borne in cars and for each tribe, the bones of the deceased are placed in a coffin. Anyone joins in the procession. The female relatives are there to wail at the burial.

In 478 BC a new city wall was built and two large city gates. The Sacred way ran through the Sacred Gate to Eleusis. The street of the tombs was lined with remarkable monuments that belonged to the families of rich Athenians. Their construction was banned by decree in 317 BC. So only small columns or inscribed square marble blocks were permitted as grave stones. During the classical period an important public building Pompeion stood inside the walls which served in the procession in honor of Athena during the Panathenaic Festival.

Relatives of the deceased conducted the burial rituals mainly consisting of laying out of the body, bringing the body to the cemetery and finally bury it. Women played a major role in funeral rites. They prepared the body, washed it, adorned it with a wreath, the mouth was sealed with a token or talisman. If they used a coin they said it was the payment for the ferryman of the dead. Then the body was laid out for viewing kinswomen wrapped in robes stood round the bier, the chief mourner was at the head. This part was called the prosthesis. At the time of the funeral, offerings were made to the deceased. The coal the libation and the haimacouria(blood propitiation). The mourner first dedicated a lock of hair and libation of honey, milk, water, wine, perfumes and oils. Afterwards, there was a funeral feast called perideipnon.

Telemachus: and I would not to grieve for his death if he had died among his comrades. Then the Achaeans would have made him a tomb.

Goddess Athena <But if you hear that he is dead , return to your dear native land and keep up a mound for him and over it pay funeral rites.

Odysseus himself: I wish I had died and met my fate on that day we were fighting around the body of the dead son of Peleus. Then should I have got funeral rites.

At these words a black cloud of grief shrouded Achilles. Grasping handfuls of dark sand and ash he poured them over his head and handsome face soiling his scented tunic. The slave girls shrieked with alarm and run to Achilles beating their breasts and sinking to the ground beside him. All night long the Greeks lamented Patroclus. The leader in that outpouring of grief was Achilles who placed his hands on his friend’s chest and grieved among the Myrmidons. Then he told them to set a large cauldron on the fire and heat water to fill a bath and wash the clotted blood from Patroclus. So they took wood and kindled it. He filled the cauldron and set it on the blazing coats and watched the flames play about his bronze belly till the water boiled. Then they washed him and anointed him with oil filling the wounds with nine years old unguent.

Then they laid his body on the bier shrouding it with a soft linen cloth and on top of that a white robe. Dardanian women grieved and shed tears all night long. Briseis grieved and the other women took up her lament mourning Patroclus. Then Achilles led them as they raised their voice as one in lament. Achilles’ cry woke the Myrmidones to further lament. Agamemnon sent out men from every hut with mules to fetch wood. They carried woodman’s axes and strong ropes. They set to the long bladed axes falling tall oaks with a crash. The wood cutters handled the logs where they reached the place they set the corpse down on a platform of wood. Achilles stepping back from the pyre he cut a golden lock of his hair. Since I shall not return to my own dear native land allow me to give this lock of hair to the warrior Patroclus to take with him. So saying he went and placed the lock of hair in the corpse’s hands. Sunset would still have found them weeping.

The chief mourners remained and piling up the wood to make a pyre a hundred feet square sad at heart they placed the corpse on top. They flayed and dressed numerous fine sheep and cattle before the pyre.

And noble Achilles took fat from all and wrapped the corpse in it and piled the flayed carcasses around.

Then he learned two –handled jars of oil and honey against the bier and groaning aloud swiftly threw the bodies of four proud horses on the pyre. He also cut the throat of two of the nine dogs Patroclus feed beneath his table and threw their bodies on the pyre. There he completed the grim task killing twelve noble sons of the brave Trojans and set the pyre alight so the flames would spread. Pouring libations from a golden cup he begged the winds to blow. Achilles drew wine from a golden bowl in a two handled cup and poured it on the ground wetting the earth .By the morning the fire died down and the flames ceased. Then Achilles requested first quenching the fire with wine, then collecting the white ashes placing them into a golden urn sealed with a double layer of fat covering it with a soft linen cloth.

Next they traced the circuit of his mound setting a ring of stones around the pyre then piling earth inside. Achilles decided funeral games to be held and sent for prizes cauldrons, tripods, horses, mules, sturdy oxen, grey iron.

Burial and funeral customs.

Οdyssey

Iliad

Lament for Hector.

At Priam’s request the crowd parted and made way for the cart. The family led the way to the royal palace and there they laid the body on a wooden bed and summoned the chorus of singers to stand beside it to sing the dirges and lead the lamentation. While the women wailed in chorus.

White armed Andromache made the first lament cradling the head of man-killing Hector. The women added their grief to them. Now Hecabe took up the impassioned dirge and stirred endless grief. Helen followed with a third lament. The Trojans under Priam’s orders harnessed oxen and mules to the wagons and assembled outside the city.

For nine days they gathered huge piles of logs and on the tenth day they carried brave Hector and in tears laid the body on the summit of the pyre and set the wood ablaze. Next day the people gathered at glorious Hector pyre.

Finally Hector’s brothers collected the ashes still mourning him. They placed the ashes wrapped in a purple robe inside a golden urn and laid it in a hollow grave covering it with large close set stones. When they had heaped the mound they returned to Troy for the glorious feast appointe

Antigone

What hath not Creon destined our brothers the one to honored burial the other to unburied shame; Eteocles they say with due observance of right and custom he hath laid in the earth for his honor among the dead. But the corpse of Polyneikes none shall entomb him or mourn but leave unwept unsepulchred a welcome store for the birds to feast on at will

Creon

Eteocles shall be entombed and crowned with every rite that follows the noblest dead to their rest But for Polyneikes none shall grace him with lament but leave him unburied a corpse for birds and dogs to eat a ghastly sight of shame.

Guard

No stroke of pickaxe was seen there no earth thrown by mattock the ground was hard and dry unbroken. The dead man was veiled from us not shut within a tomb but lightly strewn with dust.

Here she is the doer of the deed caught this girl burying him. She cried aloud with a sharp cry of a bird .When she saw the corpse bare lifted up a voice of wailing, she brought thirsty dust in her hand and from a shapely ewer of bronze held high with thrice poured drink offering she crowned the dead.

WHAT TO PAY ATTENTION TO

The numerous funeral sculptures erected along theroad, the remaining part of the Themistoclian wall, the remains of Pompeion, the kouros from the Sacred Gate, the grave of Dionysios crowned by a mighty bull, Heridanos river, the five pairs of dolls and other toys from children’s graves, what has remained from a pair of shoes, the pottery shards used as voting tokens for ostracism the Sphinx who killed or ate those who could not answer its riddle ,the ring like aryballus the Molossian dog, the numerous pyxis with geometric decoration and sculpted horses, the pots decorated with horizontal zones meanders triangles cylinders circles lines, what has remained from a pair of shoes, the pottery shards used as voting tokens for ostracism the Sphinx who killed or ate those who could not answer its riddle ,the ring like aryballus the clay figurines, the large scale marble sculpture.