The archaeological site of Kerameikos once served as the largest and oldest cemetery of Athens, being in operation up to the 6th century AD but also had other uses during its life, such as a processional route, a shrine, a city gate, and potter’s studios. The name Kerameikos comes from the Greek Kerameis which means ‘potters’. There are two distinct areas of Kerameikos, the ‘inner’ which covers the former potter’s quarters and the ‘outer’ which covers the cemetery. The site of Kerameikos was once an area of marshland along the banks of the Eridanos river and began its use as a cemetery as far back as the 3rd millennium BC. It became an organised cemetery from around 1200BC and numerous cist graves have been found dating to this period. During the Archaic period from 800-400 BC the monuments became more complex and houses were built on the better/firmer land.
In 479 BC Themistocles, a Greek politician and general, built a city wall of which is split by two important gates. The first was the Sacred Gate where pilgrims from Eleusis entered the city during the annual Eleusian Procession. The Eleusinian Mysteries were considered the most famous secret religious rite of ancient Greece and were initiations held each year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone. The Sacred Gate marked the end of the Scared Way aka Iera Odos, the oldest road in ancient Greece stretching back to 2500 BC. To the northeast are the remains of the Diplyon Gate, the city’s main entrance and where the Panathenaic Procession began. This procession marked the beginning of the Panathenaic Games, the precursor to the modern Olympic Games from 566 BC to the 3rd century AD. Leading off the Scared way is the Street of Tombs. this avenue was reserved for Athens elite, while the ordinary citizens were buried in the surrounding areas. The lavish funerary monuments date to the 4th century BC as lavish mausoleums were banned by decree in 317 BC, when only simple columns or square marble blocks were allowed.
During this 5th and 4th century BC an important building known as the Pompeion stood inside the city wall and between the two gates. It was at the Pompeion that a large feast would occur in honour of Athena before the Panathenaic Festival. During this a hecatomb (a sacrifice of 100 cows) was carried out and the people feasted, excavations have found heaps of animal bones in front of the city wall. The Pompeion and many other buildings in Kerameikos were razed to the ground during the sacking of Athens by the Roman dictator Sulla in 86BC. During the 2nd century AD a storehouse was constructed on the site of the Pompeion but this was destroyed by the invasion of the Heruli (an early Germanic tribe) in 267 AD. The ruins became the site of potter’s workshops until around 500AD, at this time two parallel colonnades were built over the old city walls. A new Festival Gate was built to the east and three entrances leading into the city. In the 6th century invasions by Ayars and Slavs destroyed the area of Kerameikos and the memory of it as an area faded. It was 1863 before it was rediscovered when a worker dug up a stele (a wooden or stone inscribed slab). Archaeological excavations started in 1870 and have continued periodically to the present day.
There has been a vast amount of finds at Kerameikos including a plague pit dating to around 430-426BC which held the remains of 1000 Athenians who died during the Plague of Athens. The Plague of Athens caused widespread chaos and the burials reflect this. There were five layers of bodies in the pit, with the bottom two layers showing more care and attention to detail than the later layers with bodies thrown haphazardly into the bit. The lower layers also had more soil between burials and far more pottery and funerary offerings than the upper layers. The origins of the Plague of Athens are unknown but studies carried out on these remains show a bacteria similar to typhoid which may give us an answer to its cause.
If visiting Athens I thoroughly recommend a visit to Kerameikos as its a million miles away from the busier and more well-known ancient Greek sites, one can wander up and down the Sacred Way in almost perfect silence. You may even hear and then see a pair of mating tortoises paying homage to the decadent days of old like we did on the day of our visit!
GPS: 37.97806, 23.71713