Agora Deposit: B 19:6
Title:   Pyre in House N, Room 4
Category:   Pyre
Description:   Pyre in House N, room 4 (RSY=Pyre 7), in the industrial area west of the Areopagus.
Pottery, mall pieces of calcined bone, log, wood cinders, and charcoal in diamond-shaped pit in floor sequence. The pyre came to light just below the surface of layer 4, with the pit going down into layer 5, the floor associated with phase 3 of the house. Layer 4 ran over the foundation of the wall between rooms 5 and 6; a layer of decayed mudbrick covered layer 4. The pyre seems to have been dug into layer 4, which was then patched and continued in use. A new floor was not laid, however, so the pyre may have been buried between the abandonment of the house and its collapse. Reddening of the floor of the pit indicates burning in situ.
This is one of the largest pyres (more than one pyre lekanis, four chytridia, four ribbon-handled plates, all of them made up of two pairs). It is possible that this is a double pyre of some sort, with two different groups of people combining their offerings, or an instance of two pyres deposited one on top of the other with a very short interval of time between them.
Bibliography:   Hesperia Suppl. 47 (2013), no. 46, pp. 158, 159, figs. 1, 4, 78, 91.
    Hesperia 20 (1951), pp. 122-123, pl. 49 b, pl. 52 a (Pyre 7).
    Agora IV, p. 235.
    Agora XII, p. 385.
    Agora XXIX, p. 438.
    Agora XXXIII, p. 345.
Chronology:   Late 4th-early 3rd c. B.C.
Date:   29 September 1947
Section:   ΝΝ
References:   Publications (6)
Publication Pages (16)
Image: 2013.09.0012
Objects (36)
Notebook: ΝΝ-31
Notebook Page: ΝΝ-31-78 (pp. 6144-6145)
Notebook Page: ΝΝ-31-80 (pp. 6148-6149)