Agora Deposit: A 20:4
Title:   Pyre
Category:   Pyre
Description:   A compact group of four complete vases and a lamp, found on a house floor; possibly the remains of a sacrificial pyre but without evidence of burning or the characteristic votive vases.
Layer II, "nest of small pots" in SE corner. The deposit dates near the end of the first phase of the house, but before the early-4th c. rebuilding. The pottery types suggest an identification as a pyre; the close similarity of the two skyphoi in size and firing (unevenly fired red) suggests that they were part of the same kiln batch and were purchased together. The surfaces of the lamp and the Corinthian skyphos show traces of burning. Neither burning nor bone is recorded (Young has not identified as pyre probably because of the early date, which would have made its burial after the abandonment of the house impossible).
Notes:   See also P 17211 (ΞΞ 171) from Layer II but not from the nest of pots.
Bibliography:   Hesperia Suppl. 47 (2013), no. 48, pp. 161, 162, figs. 78, 94, 95.
    Agora XII, p. 383.
Chronology:   425-400 B.C.
Date:   31 July 1946
Section:   ΞΞ
Grid:   ΞΞ:99-102/ΛΘ-ΜΒ
References:   Publication: Agora XII
Publication: Hesperia Suppl. 47 (2013)
Publication Page: Agora 12.2, s. 10, p. 383
Publication Page: Agora 12.2, s. 39, p. 412
Image: 2013.09.0003
Image: 2015.01.0051
Objects (5)
Lot: ΞΞ 40
Notebook: ΞΞ-4
Notebook Page: ΞΞ-4-24 (pp. 637-638)
Notebook Page: ΞΞ-4-26 (pp. 641-642)