Agora Deposit: M 17:3
Title:   Damaged Urn Cremation
Supervisor:   Eugene Vanderpool
Category:   Burial
Description:   Grave (adult female). (In some records as Grave XXXI).
The tomb was partly destroyed in antiquity; there are sherds of all periods down to Late Roman (and later) note din the fill immediately above it. A modern well was partly cut into the northeast portion of the tomb as preserved, and an ancient block, reused in a modern wall, was founded directly on bedrock just to the southwest of the tomb.
As preserved, the tomb consisted of a roughly oval cutting, 1.40m long, oriented southeast to northwest. The cinerary urn, probably once stood in a shallow sinking a little in from the northwest end (cf. trench-and-hole). the cutting itself proved to be an enlargement of the mouth of the filled in Protogeometric well M 17:5. As encountered, the cinerary urn, largely destroyed in antiquity, was bedded in the disturbed upper filling of the well. Excavating the green clayey earth below the tomb, largely redeposited and decomposed bedrock, the excavator quickly noted Protogeometric sherds, while the cutting itself for the well rounded out to a diameter of ca. 0.75m towards the bottom, slightly greater towards the top.
The cinerary urn, contained the cremated remains of an adult female, aged ca. 30 years at death according to Angel, but aged 40-50 years at death in the more recent reanalysis.
The amphora also contained a few fragments of bronze and iron jewelry , described by the excavator as pins, which had disintegrated and were never inventoried: it is possible but not certain, that these were remnants of jewelry melted out of shape by cremation. six fragments of animal bone were also encountered inside the cinerary urn, together with the cremated human remains. Most of the fragments were identified as dog and were unburned. a few fragments of mudbrick in the upper fill of the well may also have come from the grave.
Contents:   Bones removed to human bone storage (AA 287), July 1957.
Bibliography:   Hesperia 7 (1938), p. 325.
    Agora XXXVI, Tomb 21, pp. 213-217, 538, figs. 2.126-2.128.
Chronology:   Middle Geometric I
Date:   26 February 1937
Section:   Φ
Grid:   Φ:69/ΚΔ
References:   Publication: Agora XXXVI
Publication: Hesperia 7 (1938)
Report: 1937 Φ
Report Page: 1937 Φ, s. 4
Images (5)
Object: P 9066
Object: P 36061
Lot: Φ 13
Lot: Φ 14
Notebooks (5)
Notebook Pages (6)