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Modern Description: During excavation of a lot at 35 Salaminos Street, remains of the funerary monuments of the Demosion Sema were revealed. Dating to the 5th century B.C., it was the most important cemetery in ancient Athens.
This public cemetery, linked with the rise of democracy, had been founded during the Classical age on the northwest limits of the city. It was situated along the ancient road that ran through the asty (urban center) connecting the Kerameikos with Plato's Academy. Prominent men as well as those fallen in the many wars waged by the Athenians had been buried there at public expense, so that the Demosion Sema resembled a military cemetery. In accordance with the 'law of their forefathers' (patrios nomos), those who had fallen in war were cremated and then brought back from distant battlefields for honorary burial. Two sanctuaries are mentioned as having been in the area, one dedicated to Dionysus Eleuthereus and the other to Ariste-Kalliste, an epithet of the goddess Artemis.
It was at this site that common graves of those who had fallen in the Peloponnesian War were found for the first time. Within two intersecting trenches lying at right angles to each other, the remains of the funerary pyre of a great number of dead had been buried with grave goods (kterismata) in monumental limestone (porous) containers. In all, parts of five monuments were found in these two ditches; they had suffered extensive damage, primarily during the Roman and Late Roman periods.
Outside the ditches, another part of a destroyed common grave was found which had also been dug out of bedrock. It predated the others, and its construction was entirely different from theirs. Its walls were built of unbaked brick, and on the inside appears to have been separated into at least two spaces. In one of these was found a square porous plinth with a carved depression for an urn.
Inside the monuments, in disturbed fill, a large quantity of 5th century B.C. pottery was found, including red-figure as well as white-ground lekythoi with unique representations, together with many cremated male bones belonging to at least 58 individuals. In only one of the monuments was a layer of bones together with a few pottery and alabaster grave goods revealed. Excavation has not been completed, to enable us to draw safer and more explicit conclusions. The Ministry of Culture has proceeded to expropriation of neighboring properties to enable future excavation and reveal the continuation of these monuments and their trenches.
[Judith Binder: Demosion Sema: State Burial Ground for those fallen in battle by sea or land, on the Road to the Academy: Paus. 1.29.4-16; SEG_25 56 (1971); Stupperich, R. 1977, 26-33; Pritchett, W. K. 1985, 95, 103-104, 105-124, 139-140, 145-151, 153-241 passim; Ritchie Jr., C. E. 1985, 770-786; Pritchett W. K. 1998, 1-60; SEG 51 (2005) nos. 49-50. For photographs of the Demosion Sema inscriptions, see C. W. Clairmont, Patria Nomos, 1983
[The Demosion Sema was between two roads to the Academy, the Dipylon-Academy Road (Part II no. 565) and the road through the Leokoriou St. Gate (Part II no. 566). Most of the stelai were illegally excavated from ca. 1850 onwards and broken up to be reused as building material. The records of the Archaeological Society and the Agora Excavation field notebooks show that no fragment of a Demosion Sema inscription was ever found in the Post-Herulian Wall pace S. Alipheri, «Τά διεσπαρμένα μνημεία ως πηγές για την καταστροφή τού Δημοσίου Σήματος,» Horos 10-12 (1992-1998) 183-203, pl. 35 = SEG_46 73 (1996)]]
Wikidata ID: Q116312064
Trismegistos Geo: 364

Info: Odysseus

(Odysseus, Greek Ministry of Culture)

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