Agora Deposit: D 16:2
Title:   Urn cremation
Supervisor:   Margaret Crosby
Category:   Burial
Description:   Grave 1 (Grave XXVI: EG) Urn cremation (trench-and-hole), adult male?
[JP]
Boots or Booties Grave. Near the west branch of the Great Drain, about 100m to the southwest of the Agora horos inscription. According to Young's publication "the burial found in 1948 to the southwest of the Agora, was made in a pit cut into the bedrock, roughly rectangular in shape, with a maximum east-west width of 0.65m. Its depth along the east side was about 0.50m; along the west side it was somewhat less owing to the slope of the bedrock. The ground level at the time of the burial must have lain somewhat higher; a deep disturbance of Byzantine times had gone to bedrock in the area of the grave and destroyed all evidence as to the original levels. The corpse had been cremated on a pyre, probably nearby at the ground-level of the time. There were no traces of burning on the bottom or the sides of the pit itself, which was in any case too small to have held the pyre. After cremation the remains of the bones, together with the jewelry which had probably served to fasten the clothed, were gathered up and placed in an amphora. A deeper hole at the southwest corner of the pit, going to a total depth of 0.80m, served to hold the amphora containing the ashes, which was placed upright in it and packed around with small stones to keep it in place. Rough walls of dry stone were built up to east and west of the deep hole containing the ash-urn; these served to support the ends of slab of a bluish-grey limestone placed as a cover to protect the amphora with its ashes. After burial the amphora must have been empty save for the charred bones in its bottom, and all the space under the cover slab must have been likewise empty. In later times a watercourse, perhaps a tributary of the Great Drain, passed over or just to the south of the grave, and silt deposited by the water had filling the amphora to within twelve centimeters of its mouth.
Contents:   Carbonized figs, considerably shrunk, but still showing their original shape and measuring (28-35) 31.7x (15-20) 17.3mm.
Substantial quantity of animal bone, with many of the individual fragments cremated or fire-affected.
Notes:   Negs. XXVIII-87 to 92, OO 242, 245, 248, 249, 250, 253
Bibliography:   Coldstream (1968), pp. 10-13, pl. I, a-j.
    Hesperia 18 (1949), pp. 275-297, figs. 2-12, pls. 66-72.
    Agora XXXVI, Tomb 11, pp. 77-101, figs. 2.31-2.52, 3.17, pl. VI.
Chronology:   Early Geometric I
Date:   6-12 April 1948
Section:   ΟΟ
Grid:   ΟΟ:58/Ε
References:   Publication: Agora XXXVI
Publication: Hesperia 18 (1949)
Publication Page: Agora 8, s. 139, p. 125
Publication Page: Agora 13, s. 289, p. 268
Report: 1949 ΟΟ
Report: 1948 ΟΟ
Report Page: 1949 ΟΟ, s. 2
Images (23)
Objects (32)
Lot: ΟΟ 180
Lot: ΟΟ 181
Notebook: ΟΟ-7
Notebook: ΟΟ-9
Notebook: ΟΟ-26
Notebook Pages (14)