Archaeologists To Study Shackled Skeletons From Ancient Greece To Understand Rise Of Athens

Forbes ^ | March 24, 2016 | Kristina Killgrove

[SunkenCiv]

Not even four miles south of Athens lies Phaleron — a site unknown to most tourists. A port of Athens in classical times, Phaleron also boasts one of the largest cemeteries ever excavated in Greece, containing more than 1,500 skeletons. Dating to the 8th-5th centuries BC, Phaleron is significant for our understanding of the rise of the Greek city-state. And, in particular, for understanding the violence and subjugation that went with it. Two mass burials at Phaleron include people who were tossed face-down into a pit, their hands shackled behind their backs. To learn more about these deviant burials and their relationship to Greek state formation, an international team of archaeologists is cleaning, recording, and analyzing the Phaleron skeletons.

Excavation at the site began nearly a century ago, with a mass grave – often referred to as containing the “captives of Phaleron” because of the presence of metal handcuffs – excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service. But large-scale excavation of almost an acre of Phaleron was carried out between 2012-2016 by the Department of Antiquities of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, led by archaeologist Stella Chrysoulaki. The modern excavation garnered massive publicity in Greece because of its scale and funding from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, but little news has trickled out in the English-language media...

There is significant variation in how people were buried at Phaleron. Most were interred in simple pit graves, but nearly one-third are infants and children in large jars, about 5% are cremations complete with funeral pyres, and there are a few stone-lined cist graves. One individual was even buried in a wooden boat used as a coffin – the fact that this lasted nearly three millennia shows that preservation at the site is remarkably good.

[dasboot]

I seem to recall something in The Iliad about this practice. War prisoners from Troy to be buried at the feet of slain Greek heroes in the homeland?
The ones who fell face down into the dust, clanging in their armor?

[arrogantsob]

The only incident similar in the Iliad was when Achilles sacrificed 10 (I think it was) Trojan youths before the funeral pyre of Patrocles.

And this was about six hundred years earlier.

Human sacrifice was extremely rare after the Sky gods were worshipped. This added to the horror of Agamemnon’s sacrifice of the daughter, Iphigenia to get the winds to get to Troy.

[dasboot]

Good recall!