Agora Deposit: H 17:8
Title:   Cremation Burial
Supervisor:   C.G. Thomas
Category:   Burial
Description:   Geometric grave. Bones discarded.
Tomb located about 2m west/west-southwest of the EG1 child inhumation, beneath the restored line of a hypothetical wall connecting the western "apse' and the south wall of the Geometric House. The floor of the "house" could not be distinguished from the earth packing at the top of the grave. A roughly rectangular trench was cut through earth into bedrock, except at the southeast where it was wholly cut into earth, to a depth of 0.15-0.20m. The highest preserved side of the trench was approximately 65.15 masl. Oriented more or less to the points of the compass, the trench measured about 0.80m (east-west) by about 0.70m (north-south). The filling consisted of hard earth, most of it burned and struck through with charcoal, which was especially thick on the floor of the trench, where some pieces were as much as 0.05m across. Cremated human bone was scattered throughout the filling, with the heaviest concentration at the east end. Fragments of mudbrick, found throughout the fill, were most numerous at the east end, where the largest piece marked the southeast corner. The one complete dimension recorded from among the mudbrick pieces from this tomb had a thickness of 0.090m, and was stated to be "standard from PG times down." Preserved between a piece of charcoal and bedrock were bits of very fine textile with close-set threads (August 1995 not found, nor any description in Smithson's notes). Remnants of a stone packing over the trench survived on the west side and for a short distance along the north.
Sherds, burned and unburned, were scattered throughout the fill. Several additional fragments are stored in context. A few small and clearly earlier sherds in the fill, mainly Protogeometric, probably derive from earlier disturbed burials in the vicinity.
Notes:   Fabrics from grave in box in mending room. Charcoal from grave in drawer 41-Λ.
Bibliography:   Agora XXXVI, Tomb 23, pp. 220-229, figs. 2.131-2.138.
Chronology:   Middle Geometric II
Date:   31 July 1968
Section:   ΣΤ
References:   Publication: Agora XXXVI
Report: 1968 Κ
Report Page: 1968 Κ, s. 35
Image: 2012.46.0425 (Section ΣΤ 330)
Image: 2012.46.0426 (Section ΣΤ 331)
Objects (13)