THE CEMETERY AND THE BURIAL CUSTOMS

THE CLASSICAL AND ROMAN PERIODS*

THE CEMETERY

The Cemetery during the last quarter of the seventh century probably had much the same appearance as during most of its previous existence: an uncrowded series of graves, some of the older ones with rude markers, all well spaced over a long narrow area. But about 600 B.C., activity at the site began to increase in an extraordinary way. The burials of the sixth century are approximately double the number of all the graves assigned to the Protocorinthian period, and those of the fifth century are nearly half as many again. It is not until the fourth century that the numbers begin to fall off, to cease entirely in the third. A very limited reoccupation took place in the Roman period.l

The sixth century graves were concentrated chiefly in narrow strips east and west of the long area which had earlier come into use; in the fifth century these new sections continued to be developed, and a new extension was made to the south. Fourth century burials spread over almost the entire expanse excavated, with the exception of the central area, and with a particularly heavy concentration in the north. The people of the Roman period used a section still farther north, in addition to scattering their burials in the east central area.

The original size of the Cemetery was not determined. It is possible, however, that the entire ancient cemetery was not very much larger than the area excavated, perhaps no more than half as large again. To the west, there is a clear line of demarcation beyond which there were no burials of the classical period (Sections 4 E-7 E). To the east (Sections 6 A, 7 A) are similar, though less extensive, blank areas which suggest that the outer limits of the Cemetery were reached by the excavation in that direction. On the narrow northern end, it may be noted that where the excavation was pushed farthest (Section 1 C) there was found a stone wall2 beyond which occurred only Roman graves. To the south a road and its walls almost certainly

* To Mrs. Josephine Shear Harwood and to the adminis- tration of the American School of Classical Studies, in particular Prof. Carl W. Blegen, the Director in 1948, I owe the privilege of preparing for publication this part of Corinth, XIII. For Mrs. Harwood also a note of warm appreciation for the many spring days she spent in the storehouse at Corinth helping to take inventory of the thousands of North Cemetery finds which had been deposited there throughout the war years; needless to say, without her meticulously kept notebooks of the excavation, this volume could not have been written. Many others of the American School have been of great assistance in checking descriptions and photo- graphing objects: Prof. and Mrs. John L. Caskey, Prof. and Mrs. Homer A. Thompson, Miss Lucy Talcott, Miss Alison Frantz, Prof. John Kent; to all these I give sincere thanks with the full realization of the valuable time expended and the numerous difficulties encountered in their missions in

my behalf. As always at Corinth, George Kachros and Evangelos Papapsomas have been of inestimable help.

To Prof. Thompson and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, I am especially indebted; no expression of gratitude can be wholly adequate for the privilege of spending two years at the Institute. My debts to Sir John Beazley, Prof. D. A. Amyx, and Dr. George Stamires will be evident throughout the text, and their assistance is warmly acknowl- edged. The many KP references in the catalogue were made possible by the kindness of the late Mrs. Agnes Newhall Stillwell, who so generously shared her great knowledge of Corinthian ceramics. Finally, for her good counsel and encouragement, I wish to thank the Editor, Miss Lucy T. Shoe.

1 For a tabulation of the numbers and kinds of burials in each period, see p. 71, note 27.

2 The wall measured 0.47 m. wide and 1.20 m. high;

a section six meters long was exposed.

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indicate a boundary at the southeast corner.3 The one undug area where large numbers of later graves might be expected is to the southwest. One may thus picture the Cemetery in the classical period as a long rectangle cut diagonally at the southeast corner, and measuring approximately 5,000 square meters.

The dates of the walls mentioned above were not ascertained. The road (PI. 14, a) ran between low rubble walls, one of which terminated in a small post within the excavated area.4 To judge from the coins found in it,5 the road itself may possibly date as late as the fourth century B.C.;

its walls are almost surely at least that late, since the near-by graves, which all belong to the late fifth century, are much deeper and only approximately oriented with the walls.6 A further bit of evidence may perhaps be offered by the "enclosure" which appeared about half a meter north of the north road wall.7 Its light walls, presumably the foundation of some small structure, overlay a grave of the late fifth century (409) and were not only oriented precisely with the road wall, but were found at the same depth. It must postdate grave 409, and may well be contemporary with the road walls. There is no evidence whatever for the date of the north wall in Section 1 C.

Plot walls such as that around the geometric yard were never again used. The earlier practice of erecting crude grave markers also seems to have fallen into general disuse long before the end of the seventh century. So little has survived of later types of monuments8 that the practice of setting up grave stones must have been limited at best.9

The one important monument in the post-geometric cemetery is the great platform in Sections 6 D and 7 D. It was made up of six blocks of poros which the excavators believed to be re-used orthostates (Fig. 2; PI. 14, c). The platform measured in all 3.65 m. by 2.0 m., and was 0.25 m. thick. It lay only 0.30 m. below the surface. Under the platform, or partially under

3 No graves were found in the trench dug to the south side of the south wall, across the street from the Cemetery.

All that appeared was an irregularly shaped depression, the bottom of which was 0.45 m. deeper than the surrounding level of the hardpan (normally 1.55 below the surface); the sunken area apparently continued south of the excavated section.

If the road should date as late as the fourth century (see below), it could not strictly speaking be a boundary for the Cemetery; it seems likely that the road follows an old route, which much later was enclosed between walls. A main road (ten meters wide), and presumably the chief route to Sikyon, was found to cross the neck of the promontory called Cheliotomylos, located to the south of the Cemetery (Corinth, III, ii, pp. 59ff., fig. 44). The road then curved down to the plain, and, as far as it was followed, led in a northeasterly direction toward Lechaion. Since the chief road to Lechaion was much farther to the east, the Cheliotomylos road must have very soon curved to the west toward Sikyon; but a narrow branch of the road may have taken off at the curve, serving as a subsidiary road to Lechaion for the inhabitants in the western part of the city. It is with this line from Cheliotomylos to Lechaion that the small section of the Cemetery road coincides.

4 The southern wall, neither end of which was found, was cleared to a length of 9.55 m.; the northern wall to 12.5 m.

The walls were 0.50 m. wide and 0.50 m. high, their surfaces appearing 0.90 under the modern level. The terminus of the northern wall measured 0.82 by 0.60 m. The road itself as bounded by the walls measured four meters wide.

5 X-l, X-41, X-44, X-29 (pp. 313-315). The sherd X-141 was found at a depth of 1.32 m. The only other objects found in the road were X-119 and X-158.

6 Note particularly 366, which, unlike the majority of the graves, was not on a strict north-south or east-west axis, yet was not aligned precisely with the wall. The late 490, also off axis, may reflect the position of the road to the northeast beyond the wall terminus.

7 The enclosure measured 2.07 by 1.32 m. with a slight projection of 0.13 m. at the northeast corner. The light con- struction suggests a kind of gate house rather than a shrine.

8 See grave 516 for re-used late stelai. The rough blocks found in the same section (8 A and 8 B) were probably markers for sixth century graves; see catalogue 141, 144, 164, and 243, all in one family group. See also the "colonette"

over the later 457, and the block near 472. A few tiles were found which apparently did not cover any grave; these con- ceivably could be markers, but more probably were the remains of disturbed graves.

9 The plain at Corinth completely lacks good stone. The terraces to the south are formed by a sandy conglomerate overlying clay deposits; the only stone available for building purposes is the poros which has to be brought from some distance. That the poros was brought to the Cemetery is shown by the hundreds of sarcophagi. But even considering the constant needs of the post-classical Corinthians for building material, it seems unlikely that, if there had been monuments on most of the graves, so few should have survived.

A similar lack of monuments is found in several other ancient Greek cemeteries: Olynthus, XI, pp. 133f.; Athens (Agora), Hesperia, Suppl. II, p. 15; Rhitsona, Ure, Aryballoi, p. 6. On the whole, however, other cemeteries had better marked graves.

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THE CEMETERY AND THE BURIAL CUSTOMS 67

it (P1. 14, d; Plan 1) were four graves, so carefully aligned, and so closely related in date and in the kind of offerings (see catalogue, graves 191, 192, 219, 220), that they must constitute a special group; and presumably the platform was erected to mark their position. Evenly spaced on top of the platform were four rectangular areas where the rough surface h.ad been smoothed to

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FIGURE 2. STELAI PLATFORM, PLAN AND SECTION

receive additional blocks. The areas appeared to be the bedding for foundation blocks on which stelai were erected.10 No such stelai have been discovered in the cemetery, but a frag- mentary terracotta finial (X-120, PI. 82) was found some distance away from the structure.

From its form, the finial can be dated to approximately the third quarter of the sixth century;

since the latest grave under the platform (220) can be no earlier than the middle of the century, it is quite possible that the finial belonged to one of the missing stelai.

vvih _mentarytli _erracota

heceeey,bt;

eeerce." _finia osuh _P. tea ₂ _n av _on en ^:';;::_o icvee _dsac n -v fm h tuur... ^rg

From its form, the finial can be dated to approximately the third quarter of the sixth

century;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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cetry

^t ^squt psibethtth iia elnedt is"'stli oeofte

10 The cuttings average 1.60 by 0.60 m. The finial can be reconstructed from the curve of the volutes to a width of approximately 0.30 m. This would indicate a very narrow stele, but one not out of proportion to the cuttings, assuming

that there was some kind of intermediate member, as, e.g., the New York stelai, G. M. A. Richter, Archaic Attic Grave- stones, Cambridge, Mass., 1944, figs. 73 and 104.

The stele platform offers the only certain evidence for a family burial plot in the later periods.

The scarcity of monuments in general means that a consideration of family groups must rely on the spacing of the graves and the character of the offerings.l The overall plan shows clusters of graves (Plan 1) scattered throughout the Cemetery,12 the arrangement of the later graves much less regular than those of the Geometric period. Although the nuclei of the groups are distinct, the clusters tend to merge into one another, and clear divisions can seldom be made.

Where identifiable, the clusters contain graves covering a period of roughly half a century, and in some a chronological sequence can be observed. Thus, for example, the westernmost grave in the line beginning with 238 is datable to the last quarter of the sixth century, and the graves east of this become progressively later. This eastward arrangement can also be observed in the 130 and 132 series and in the adjoining 250 group.l3 Parts of other clusters also have graves set in a more or less straight line, but showing no regular chronological sequence.

Many of the clusters, including several infant groups, are circular in arrangement. Most notable of all the clusters is the 155 series, in which the earlier graves form a line leading northward to a tight circular cluster of later burials, almost all of them containing offerings of unusual character. No formal arrangement can be discerned among the fourth century graves.14

The children, during the sixth and fifth centuries, were usually buried together in groups placed near the larger graves of the family, for example the 332 cluster and the 174 line. Most extra- ordinary is the 266 cluster (Plan 1, Section 6 D), perhaps representing the children of a prolific family plagued byinfant mortality, perhaps a small cemetery for children who died at one ^time.15 BURIAL CUSTOMS

The funeral practices of the Protocorinthian period appear to have continued without change through the last quarter of the seventh century.'6 It is with the turn of the century,

1 For special family offerings, see p. 80.

12 In the northern part of the Cemetery, however, there is no apparent clustering of the graves of the classical period.

A large and confused series of fourth century graves overlies the Protocorinthian and Geometric burials, and the few sixth and fifth century graves are scattered apparently at random.

The one notable fourth century group is in Section 2 D, perhaps containing the burials of a non-Corinthian family (see catalogue, 478).

It is in the northern part that one finds most of the in- stances where later graves were placed directly over much earlier ones: 276, 361, 418, 420, 440, 442, 445, 446, 449, 452, 471, 474, 475, 482, 485, 492, 499, 500. Note particularly the three, 445 over 440, in turn over the Geometric 38.

13 The platform cluster (136 etc.), however, shows an equally clear east-west progression; and the same direction is perhaps discernable in the double cluster, 141 and 240.

The 136 series may well be a continuation of the Proto- corinthian group to the north; and the 128 cluster related to the early graves just to the west (see catalogue for further discussion). The 141 and 155 clusters may perhaps suggest that the direction was generally from the outer edge of the Cemetery inward, the first burials in the newly opened border sections being placed as far away as possible from the old central area of Geometric and Protocorinthian graves, preserving the early spacious arrangement.

14 Several other clusters may be mentioned here. The 352 line is an example of a series in which no regular progression is apparent. Among the circular clusters, the large graves of the 168 series seem to have the oldest burial (212) at the

15 For a special children's cemetery at Phaleron, see A.J.A., XLVI, 1942, p. 24, with a reference also to Marathon,

TpacKrTKa, 1934, pp. 37ff.

16 Only two graves contained Early Corinthian offerings, 128 and 129. They were both infant burials and widely separated from each other. Around them were a number of empty and undisturbed large graves. In the group near 128 several graves have been assigned to the Protocorinthian period to correspond to the date of 78; another, 148, is unquestionably Middle Corinthian. The remainder could belong in time to any one of the three, 78, 128, or 148. The graves of early type near 129, though empty, have all been placed in the Protocorinthian series because of the near-by grave 65.

The isolation of the two Early Corinthian infants' graves is curious. It is possible that some of the large graves sur- rounding these once contained contemporary burials and were re-used at a later time, but most of them appear to be intact. It would appear, rather, that in the late seventh century only children were given offerings, and that, in general, offerings were few and modest. In other respects also, continuity with the Protocorinthian period is apparent.

Skeletons were protected by monolithic poros coffins (proba- bly also in urns), and the bodies were interred in a contracted position. Finally, so far as can be determined, the relative number of burials is probably the same as in the Proto- corinthian period, i.e., comparatively few for the elapsed time. For other graves possibly to be assigned to the Early Corinthian period, see the discussions under graves 132, 135, 136 in the catalogue. Note also the Early Corinthian kraters, X-135, X-136, which may have been burial containers.

THE CEMETERY AND THE BURIAL CUSTOMS 69 coincidental with the more intensive use of the Cemetery, that there begins the long sequence of graves which forms the major part of the Cemetery. The fullness of the series and its long duration make it possible to observe the changes which took place and to establish the periods of the changes. Several important innovations in the burial practices occurred early in the sixth century, and in the middle of the fifth century there was a gradual transition to newer, cheaper kinds of protection; but there is no break in the continuity. In the early fourth century one finds a gap in the sequence of the burials, but it is a gap in time, not a break in the kind of burial rites. The ritual thus continues with only minor variations from about 600 B.C. down to the early third century, i.e., the end of the Greek period of the Cemetery. The graves of the period of Roman occupation will be considered below.

Because of the continuity apparent through the three centuries, each aspect of the interments will be discussed as a unit. The more general factors, such as orientation and age indications, will be followed by a detailed listing of the methods of burial, the sarcophagi, tile-covered graves, unprotected burials, etc., which are treated separately, each in its entire extent through the Greek period; so also the selection of grave furniture, its placement and significance. In this section also will be discussed briefly secondary burials and disturbances.

ORIENTATION, ETC.

As in previous centuries, the only method of burial in the Cemetery during the classical period, with exceedingly few exceptions, was inhumation.17 The several aspects of these inter- ments were, however, varied and numerous. Throughout all periods a certain informality prevailed. Quite exceptional is the uniformity in the placement of the bodies. The graves as a rule were dug on a strict north-south or east-west axis, about equal numbers of each; within the grave the body was oriented so that the head was at the east or south.18

In the late seventh century the corpse was still placed in a contracted position; by the early sixth, the first extended burials were made, and these appeared concurrently with the con- tracted forms for about half a century. It seems likely that in some families the traditional contracted position prevailed longer than in others.19 After about the middle of the sixth century the bodies were always extended. Arms usually were placed by the sides, although occasionally one or both were crossed over the chest. This variation also seems to be determined

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