Agora Deposit: I 18:1
Title:   Pit Tomb, Adolescent Inhumation
Supervisor:   Eugene Vanderpool
Category:   Burial
Description:   Rectangular pit, oriented east-west, cut party into filling of Early Protogeometric pit-well (I 18:4), to a preserved depth of about 0.30m. A late Byzantine wall founded below the floor of the grave destroyed the entire eastern half of the earlier burial. In what survived of the west end of the tomb pit was found the well-preserved lower half of the skeleton, oriented east-west, cranium originally to the east. Reanalysis of the human remains in 2000 suggested a child aged 12-14 years at death. The deceased was found in a fully extended supine position on his/her back; fingers, pelvis, and lower body through toes are preserved.
The tomb pit had a preserved length of about 1m and a width of ca. 0.80m. The earth-cut sides of the tomb-pit were in part lined with fieldstones, and similar fieldstones were encountered in the fill off the tomb. A single preserved cover slab (not recorded) protected the grave and its offerings; originally the entire body would have been covered by slabs.
The primary inhumation in situ in Tomb 18 was AA52a. In the process of studying the skeletal material, the fragmentary remains of two further individuals were noted, including the secondary or disturbed remains of an adult inhumation (AA 52b), as well as those of a cremated adult (AA 52c). the position or even presence of these two individuals was not noted in the field, and both are probably intrusive, particularly as the grave was disturbed by later activity.
Although half of the tomb was entirely destroyed by later building activity, what survived constitutes one of the richest graves on the slopes of Areopagos and in Early Iron Age Athens.
Bibliography:   Hesperia 43 (1974), pp. 352-359, pls. 75b, 76, 77a.
    Hesperia 17 (1948), pp. 158-159, pl. 41, 1.
    Agora XXXVI, Tomb 18, pp. 185-199, figs. 2.107-2.115.
Chronology:   Middle Geometric I
Date:   13-15 March 1947
Section:   ΑΡ
Grid:   ΑΡ:38-39/Ι
References:   Publication: Agora XXXVI
Publication: Hesperia 17 (1948)
Publication: Hesperia 43 (1974)
Publication Page: Agora 8, s. 28, p. 14
Publication Page: Agora 8, s. 74, p. 60
Image: 2012.30.0654 (Section ΑΡ 128)
Image: 2012.30.0660 (Section ΑΡ 134)
Image: 2012.30.0665 (Section ΑΡ 139)
Objects (22)
Lot: ΑΡ 34