Tour Introduction
Dear traveller, welcome to Athens. Welcome to this beautiful, full of diversities but definitely fascinating city. My name is Georgia and I’m a native Athenian. I’ve been working as a professional tourist guide for many years and together we will explore one of the most visited and at the same time hidden parts of Athens. The bustling Monastiraki area and beyond! We will discover the ancient past of this busy place and the historical thread that connects it with our present. This journey through time will bring us to one of the most important and least discovered parts of Athens: The Kerameikos ancient cemetery! The area where life and death were reconciled while memory and oblivion were giving their greatest battles!HOW TO USE THIS APPBefore we start our tour, it’s useful to tell you how to use this app.As you can see from the display window on your audio player, each of the stops on this tour has its own title. You can skip ahead or tailor your itinerary to your own tastes.But navigating on your own can be confusing, and it’s easier to just follow the tour in the order I’ve laid out. To help you along, I‘ve invited my colleague Mary – Welcome, Mary!- Hi – or as we say here in Greece, “yassas”.- Mary will give you directions from one stop to the next. After listening to her directions, you can pause the audio guide, then restart it when you are ready to see the next sight. To help you along, there’s a handy companion map available for this tour.Now, let’s dive into the heart of Athens. Shall we?
Stop 1 - The Monastiraki Square
First some general information about the area in order to understand where we are! Having the Acropolis hill as a reference point, you are standing on the northern side of it, andyou are by one of the busiest and most visited squares of the city. Few places in Athens are so vibrant and full of historical and cultural elements combined together. Stand in the middle of the square and just take a look around you. Immediately your senses will warn you about things happening close by. The smell of just-baked bread from a bakery or the scent of Greek coffee from a nearby kafenio. Here you can find almost everything about food-anyway we are just a few blocks away from the central food market of Athens. Traditional greek taverns, souvlaki and other snack places, fancy restaurants, gelaterias, modern cafes, locals with their stalls selling fresh fruits or grilled corn and chestnuts. You name it!- You give me an appetite, Georgia. Please allow me to add: don’t miss the typical snack “koulouri”, a kind of sweet bread with sesame, in round shape, crunchy or soft!.- Thank you Mary for the extra info.So, here, you can find everything about local folk art, from copies of museum artefacts to simple Chinese-made souvenirs, antiques, vintage objects or handmade bracelets for good luck. Street artists of all ages and styles. You can see the locals enjoying their morning walk around, tourists exploring, working people using the metro, moving hastily and all these in the same picture frame, mixing their paces and lifestyles. A real melting pot! Let’s explore it! Mary?
Stop 2 - Pantanassa Virgin Mary Church
- At the northern side of the Square, almost at the end of it, having your back to the Metro Station, you will see a small church.- That’s right.It’s a rather small but very important church. It is known as the church of Pantanassa Virgin Mary. Pantanassa actually means “queen of all” and it comes from the Homeric poetical language. We don’t know exactly when the church was built. We know that the core of the present building belongs to the 17th century but most probably the initial church was completed in the 10th century or even earlier, and it underwent renovations in different periods. It was part of a big and thriving Monastery for monks but later it was described as a nunnery with a large number of nuns. The nunnery owned a big area with cells and workshops and looms where the nuns were making hand-woven rugs and carpets, embroideries and woollen fabrics and they were selling those at the market of the area. They were also teaching young girls and women, not necessarily nuns, arts and crafts. The importance and fame of the convent, the size and its wealth made everybody call if “the Great Monastery”.All these till the 19th century. During the War of Independence, the area generally had many adventures, and so the monastery started declining and what only survived was the small church. Monastiraki! The small monastery. And this is how the whole area got its name! Generally, when you hear a Greek word ending with –aki, it usually means the small something!
Stop 3 - Tzistarakis Mosque
On the other side of the square, you can see the famous Tzistarakis Mosque. It is one of the most characteristic buildings of the busy Monastiraki Square, right across from the Metro Station, and definitely one of the most photographed points of the city. The ottoman monument has a long history and it is related to many legends and stories of the city. The most famous refers to the Mosque’s founder.It was built in 1759 by the Ottoman governor of Athens Mustapha Agha Tzistarakis, who, according to tradition, in order to get lime, demolished a column from the Temple of Zeus, on the other side of the city, or most probably from the nearby Library of Hadrian. In any case, that deed brought upon Tzistarakis the wrath of the Athenians. You will think: that’s expected! He destroyed one of the ancient monuments so the local people had every right to get angry with him! Well.. the reason was slightly different. You see, back then, the Athenians were very superstitious and there was a common belief that the destruction of an ancient building can release from the depths of the earth an ancient curse and death upon the city! So when they found out that Tzistarakis had moved a whole ancient column to make lime for the Mosque, they were infuriated. The Sultan, in order to appease them, dismissed the governor and sent him away. Ironically though, the superstition was fulfilled, since, almost a year after the completion of the Mosque, a plague epidemic fell in the city and everybody blamed Tzistarakis for that.In any case, the Mosque was ready and superstitious or not, it’s worth a visit. It has two levels. At the ground level, from the 18th century till nowadays, there are small shops where you can find all types of souvenirs. On the upper level of the square building, there was the Mosque till the beginning of the War of Independence. It is roofed by a big hemispherical dome, on an octagonal base, covered initially with lead and later with ceramic tiles. Inside, the dominant element was the mihrab, showing the direction to Mecca.In the early 20th century, it was partly renovated and operated as the Museum of Greek Handicrafts while later, in the 70s, and till present days, it became the museum of Greek Folk Art. So there you can enjoy a beautiful pottery collection of ceramics.The view of the mosque, along with the nearby monuments, and of course, the view of the Acropolis towering above the square is really amazing from the roof-top cafes of the surrounding buildings. Don’t miss it. From up there you can also notice the multi-colour stones that cover the square like a carpet, creating lines and directions, indicating the flow of many different people and their diversity.
Stop 4 - The Library of Hadrian
Adjacent to the mosque is the Library of Hadrian, one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world and definitely of the city of Athens. It was built by the famous Roman emperor Hadrian, who actually left monuments all around Europe. He ruled the huge Roman Empire for about 20 years, in the first half of the 2nd century AD. Specifically here in Athens, the city that he loved a lot, he was responsible for the construction of aqueducts, temples, theatres, bridges and s.o. He also promoted a lot of the cultural activities of the city since he loved arts and letters, being a philosopher himself.During his third visit to Athens, at around 130 AD, he realized his plans for a big library close to the centre of the political, commercial and religious life. So this is exactly what we see in front of us. The shape perhaps looks familiar: it’s the typical style of a Roman forum. A big, rectangular in shape courtyard, 100x70 m, surrounded by walls and columns. According to the famous ancient traveller and historian Pausanias, the library was the most remarkable construction of Hadrian and full of luxury. A hundred columns of Phrygian marble around the garden, walls of alabaster, statues and precious materials, and colourful ceilings were just some of the elements that were embellishing the library.The entrance was from the western side where till nowadays we find a tall marble wall interrupted by the propylon, the monumental gate, consisting of 4 Corinthian columns of pink marble. On the left and right there were seven and seven green-marble Corinthian columns respectively. The marble was coming from different areas of the huge empire, so there was a variety of qualities and colours-pink, green, white, grey- creating a capturing/striking colour effect, something that the Romans loved a lot. Leaving the gate behind them, people were entering an impressive stoa and had in front of them the big, open courtyard. In the middle of it, there was a pool, almost 60 m long, making the area ideal for relaxing after hours of studying and listening to lectures. On both long sides of the courtyard, north and south, there were two long porticos, roofed buildings that are, where people, sheltered and have no problem with the weather, could find special rooms mostly for lectures, philosophical talking and lessons.Did they have books? Could they take them outside the library? Where they were reading?Well, first things first! Back then people didn’t have books yet. Instead, they were using papyrus or vellum. So, we know that in the library there were around 20.000 papyrus scrolls and all the knowledge till then was gathered in the last part of the library, the two-storey building in the east. In its rooms, there were selves for the papyrus books. There were also reading rooms and small amphitheatres for gatherings and lectures. So here was the actual library. Visitors of course couldn’t take the papyrus rolls outside the library.Unlike the bustling roman agora that was just a few meters away from the library, here the area was very peaceful and quiet. An ideal place for learning, relaxing and admiring architecture and art.What happened to the building? The library was destroyed in the 3rd century BC when the Heruli, an early Germanic people, invaded Athens, leaving behind untold destruction. The fear of a new invasion was huge and so the local people built new fortification walls that surrounded the city and the library became part of that fortification. It was partially repaired in the early 5th century BC but never gained its past glory and use.Can you see some columns standing at the centre of the archaeological site?There was a big water pool in the library. In the early Christian period, in the 5th century, that place was completely covered by the Tetraconch. What was that? A building with 4 apses. It functioned as a church dedicated to Virgin Mary but in the 11th century, it was also burned. And then? Another church, much simpler in shape but again dedicated to Virgin Mary. And do you know how it was called during the Ottoman period? The “sunken church”! It was almost buried and people could only see its dome by that time. And yet, around it there was the beating heart of the medieval city, the centre of political, commercial and cultural activities of the Athenians. All those till the August of 1884, when a big fire destroyed everything! What a pity.Are you ready to continue?
Stop 5 - Monastiraki Metro Station
Right across the Hadrian’s Library, there is the Monastiraki Metro Station. It’s a beautiful neoclassical building with tall arches forming its entrance and allowing natural light to enter the station. It was inaugurated in the May of 1895. Back then of course we talk about the electric railway that succeeded the steam train of the 1860s, and it was connecting Athens with its port, Piraeus. After almost 130 years of continuous function and several expansions, the city train nowadays connects the northern with the southern suburbs of Athens, covering a rather long distance of 26km/16 miles.The present form of the Monastiraki Metro station dates back to 2003 when Metro Line 3 was completed passing right under the Square. During the excavations, there was a whole ancient city discovered under the modern city and thousands of portable items were brought into light along ruins of the infrastructure of the city from various periods. The oldest finds under and within the station date back to the 8th century BC and cover a huge period of time till the 18th century. We talk about numerous ruins of houses, workshops, cemeteries and more. The most impressive find however is the riverbed of the Iridanos river, one of the 3 rivers of Athens, almost dried nowadays but with still some water flowing right here. So, using the Metro system, you can enter and explore the Metro station, like all the stations of Athens, to enjoy the view of the finds since most of those function also as small museums. And just in case, while strolling around, mind your personal objects to avoid any unpleasant incident of pickpocketing.- What is next Mary?- Well, Georgia, the Hephaistou street.- Lead us there, Mary.- Right outside the metro station, on the left and right, there are two small streets lined with many souvenir shops. Having the station behind you, on the right is Pandrossou Street which will bring you finally to the orthodox cathedral church of Athens. On the left are HephaistouStreet and the beginning of the flea market of Athens.- Thank you, Mary.
Stop 6 - Hephaistou Street
Hephaistou street was named after the ancient god of fire, metals and volcanoes, Hephaistus or Volcan. Have you ever heard about him?From his Latin name we get the word volcano. He was one of the principal figures of the ancient Greek pantheon and he was worshipped all around Greece, already since the prehistoric times, as the patron god of metals, metalworkers and artisans generally. He himself was considered as a master in crafts and according to mythology, even though he was described as the ugliest god, he got married to the beauty goddess, Aphrodite.It’s not a coincidence that this street got this particular name, since already the ancient time the area was full of workshops and shops of blacksmiths, bronze smiths and potters and that was pretty much what was happening till the early 20th century around here. Today all those workshops are closed but there was an important presence of those people and their activities for centuries.
Stop 7 - Flea Market
Well, nowadays, it's not actually a flea market in a conventional way, since it features a big number of typical shops where you will find a great variety of folk art, museum copies, souvenirs, clothes of Greek designers or plain t-shirts, leather products like sandals, jewellery. Everything! Your eyes will be perhaps attracted by those shops that sell colourful beads so you can make your own bracelets or necklaces. Why not? And of course, we must not forget something very typical that I presume you noticed already: the blue eye! It’s a very common symbol that you will find on earrings, bracelets, keychains, tote bags, clothes, table clothes etc. The blue eye or “mati” in Greek, has its origins in the ancient beliefs about negative energy and it is something that many countries and cultures share around the Mediterranean Sea. According to those beliefs, if someone stares at you with jealousy or admiration, can transfer too much energy that can affect you psychologically, it can bring bad luck or even physical symptoms, like a strong headache, disorientation, upset stomach and s.o. This can also happen with a compliment or a negative comment. Let me explain how it works. For example, you may see someone walking by and you think “oh, what a lovely hat” or “so beautiful hair”! And the next moment that person has tripped over and fallen down! In order to prevent this from happening, people who share this belief, pin on them a charm or wear something in the form of an eye! Why is it blue? Well, it is believed that people with blue eyes, a rather rare colour especially in the ancient past, were more vulnerable to sending and receiving the negative energy, so the symbol that protects has exactly this colour. According to tradition, particularly women and babies are more easily affected by the “mati” and so a golden pin with a blue eye charm is a very common gift for a newborn baby.In any case, this has become the new trend and no matter if you believe in this superstition or not, definitely you will see the blue eye everywhere. And just to let you know, for most of the products at the souvenir shops there are fixed prices, but tell you the truth, you can always bargain if you like this game! Even if you don’t achieve a better price, at least you tried.Let’s continue to the next point of interest, Avissinias Square. We need your directions here, Mary.- Walking on Hephestou Street, just a couple blocks after Monastiraki Square, you will see on your right an opening, a point where the flea market becomes much more interesting as we are reaching the Avissinias Square.
Stop 8 - Avissinias Square
- That’s right. The Avissinias square is like a paradise for the locals, mostly, collectors. Here you can find many antique and thrift stores and a huge variety of things, from gems to junk! There are two names for this small square. Among the locals, it’s known either as the Avissinias Square or the Yusurum! The first, Avissinias, from the ancient name of Ethiopia, Avissinia, indicates that in the 19th century when the square was formed, there were many Ethiopian people living around it. The second, is Yusurum, because of an old Jewish family that owned one of the most popular thrift shops in Athens in this area, back in the 19th century.The square is mostly surrounded by old two-storey buildings. At the ground level of those, you will find antique stores, while on the upper level many of those house nice cafes and bars. At the centre of the square, there are vendors with stalls selling again old furniture, vintage objects, collectibles, old books, vinyl discs, magazines, old coins and many more. The bazaar is open every day but it’s a long tradition since 1912, to operate on Sundays too. And it’s basically then that you see hundreds of people coming downtown to enjoy their morning coffee and then spend hours in front of the stalls looking for unique treasures to complete their collections. During the weekdays it’s not so busy so you may see the local vendors taking their break from promoting their goods, spending time playing chess or backgammon, sipping their coffee or talking about politics! Oh, and just in case you think they are arguing or fighting! No! We, the Greeks, tend to be rather loud and expressive people! Leaving the market behind you, the pedestrian street will bring you in front of an ongoing archaeological excavation. It’s part of the ancient Agora, the beating heart of the classical city, the place for all types of activities, but this is part of one other exploration that you must not miss! In any case, if you turn to the left you will see the beautiful church of Saint Filippos.
Stop 9 - Church of Agios Filippos
According to tradition, the church was dedicated to the memory of Apostle Filippos who preached in Greece and spent 2 years in Athens. The church is a restoration of the 1960s and an exact replica of the early-byzantine monument that preexisted and was most probably constructed in the 9th century or even earlier. It’s a three-aisle basilica with beautiful decoration with frescoes and portable icons, an elegant wooden screen, while outside there is a tall bell tower. The church hosts many icons also from the surrounding churches that were demolished back in the 1930s in order to begin with the excavations of the Ancient Agora.Did you know that Saint Filippos is considered as the patron saint of trains and people working or travelling with trains?Leaving the church, there are two ways to continue towards the Kerameikos archaeological site. One is to keep wandering by the winding paths around the Flea market and perhaps to take a nice break for a coffee or a brunch in one of the local cafes. All those are very popular among Greek and foreign visitors and of course, following the new trends, many of those are very …Instagrammable! The other way is to walk by the ruins of the Ancient Agora. The pedestrian street will bring you to the Thission Metro station.To the right, just few meters away from the station, there is a beautiful Byzantine monument.
Stop 10 - Church of Agioi Asomatoi
It is a fine example of the byzantine architecture and one of the many beautiful monuments that luckily survived in Athens. Most probably it was built in the 11th century and it was dedicated to the Angels. The building underwent many changes but with a restoration in the 60s, it was brought to its original form. It is a simple four-column cruciform building, inscribed with a narthex, a typical example of an Athenian Byzantine church of this period. Its main feature is the typical "Athenian" dome, with marble arches. This will bring you to the beginning of a beautiful pedestrian street that was completed in 2004. Till then this was a common street with the typical traffic, with noise and smog and certainly different from what we see around us nowadays. Few meters after, and just before entering Kerameikos, on your right, there is a beautiful modern monument.
Stop 11 - The Holocaust Memorial
It was designed and created by a Greek-American artist in 2010. It was dedicated to the memory of more than 60.000 Greek Jews who were killed during World War II. Having the form of a broken Star of David, the monument works like a compass that points to the other marble pieces around bearing inscriptions and the names of all those the cities and villages across Greece from where tens of thousands of Jews were gathered and deported. The location is very symbolic too, since it is close to the synagogues in Melidoni Street but also overlooking the ancient cemetery where the Athenians were honouring their dead and where Pericles delivered his famous funeral oration describing the ideals of freedom, equality and democracy. Even the small herb garden around the monument reminds us not only of death and memory but also of healing!When you are ready, we can approach the archaeological site. Mary will help us.- Almost at the end of this beautiful pedestrian street, on the right, you will find the entrance of this really important archaeological site that includes the ruins of the ancient fortification walls and the most significant cemetery of Athens, Kerameikos.(Georgia speaking) Exactly! Kerameikos was the place that preserved and revealed some of the most crucial aspects of the life, …or death, of the ancient Athenians.
Stop 12 - Kerameikos cemetery
First of all, let me tell you that by reaching the entrance of the archaeological site, you are standing outside the limits of the ancient city. So somewhere here Athens was ending! Just to understand the size of the city back then and of course its expansion in modern times. The area was accidentally discovered in 1861 during the arrangement of the Piraeus Street. A worker started digging and came across a funeral stelae, a gravestone. So the archaeologists began immediately further studies. So let’s talk about Kerameikos! Does the name ring a bell? Ceramic? Let’s see.According to the ancient traveller and historian Pausanias, the area got its name because of the local hero Keramos, the mythical son of Dionysos, the god of wine and theatre, and of his mortal wife Ariadne! Another explanation however, talks about the big number of kerameis, potters, who lived and worked here, a tradition that started in this place because potters had found the perfect setting for their workshops: proper soil for clay and of course flowing water due to the Eridanos River, one of the 3 rivers of the city. It was exactly in those workshops that the local potters produced the fine vases that made Athens a great pottery centre, one of the most significant around the Mediterranean Sea. The area however is known mostly as the city’s biggest cemetery. It was here that the Athenians buried their most famous and important people. Their great politicians, poets, philosophers and warriors. The ones that are, who shaped the glory of Athens and defended its fame.The study of the cemeteries generally, of the customs related to death, the burial methods, the tombs and mostly the burial offerings in those- Kterismata, as they are called- gives us a huge treasure of information about the social, financial and cultural structure of the ancient societies. The ancient people in Greece had very certain beliefs about death and those took mostly shape in the Homeric period and through the Homeric epics, Iliad and Odyssey. So the prevailing belief was that the body and the soul are two separate elements. Time and death wear out the body, while the soul continues the journey in the underworld, in Hades’ realm! There is a kind of judgment and always depending on the dead’s former life, the soul goes to the Elysium fields, or the Asphodel Meadows or in the worst case, to be punished, is sent to Tartarus. No matter the social or the financial status of the dead, everybody deserved a proper funeral and grave goods placed with them, mostly their favourite objects, in order for their souls not to be tortured in Hades. Greek mythology was full of stories and adventures of people in Hades, which means of course that the ancient people were scared of the unknown condition of death.Already since the late Mycenaean period, about the 11th century BC, we know that burial and cremation, as practices, co-existed. In both cases, people were placing different objects like vases, jewellery, and weapons in the graves of their beloveds. Right above, there were also funeral stelae marking the tombs.The funeral rites also had a certain structure in 3 phases.First, the relatives were cleaning and took care of the dead’s body, putting often on white clothes. Sometimes they were putting a coin on the eyes or mouth of the deceased, for Charon, the ferryman of Hades. They were placing the body on a bed with flowers and the female relatives were gathered to mourn and sing the lament songs.The following day, there was a funeral procession, and the dead on a carriage was taken to the cemetery for the burial. This ritual was taking place after the sunset, in order, according to the ancient beliefs, for the dead not to pollute the sunbeams. Before returning back home, the relatives were taking ritual baths to purify their bodies and then they had the funeral banquet. Every year, by the end of February there was a great celebration for commemorating the dead. And you know, it’s really interesting that many of those rituals survive till the present days in different parts of Greece.So the final stage of the process was taking place exactly here. The Kerameikos cemetery.Shall we continue? Let’s enter the site. Mary?- After the ticket office, you go down the path to the right. This brings you right in front of the fortification walls.- Let’s go then!
Stop 13 - The Fortification wall
The history of the area goes back to prehistoric times, specifically, the 11th century BC, when the whole place was used only as a cemetery for the people who lived around the Acropolis hill. That was pretty much the use of the area till the end of the archaic period, roughly the end of the 6th century BC. Things completely changed after the confrontation with the Persians and the end of the Persian Wars. We go back to the early 5th century BC, in 479 BC specifically. A new threat arises for the locals!Do you know which city had always been a rival to Athens? The other powerful city of Greece, Sparta. The far-sighted Themistocles, one of the most important Athenian generals and politicians, had the idea of fortifying the city against the rising power of Sparta. In order to catch the Spartans napping, he pressed the Athenians to build the fortifications really quickly and the famous Themistoclean wall was completed within just a year, surrounding and protecting the whole city. It was a record time! According to the ancient historian Thucydides, it had a total length of 6500 m, with a lower wall in front, the main wall about 8-10 meters tall. It was about 3-4m thick/wide, reinforced with towers, while In front of the wall there was a moat about 8-9 m deep. The base was made of stones, sometimes roughly cut and placed together, while the upper part was of unbaked bricks that didn’t survive and were later replaced by other materials. The ruins can be seen till now. It had almost 15 gates leading people outside the city and connecting Athens with the different parts of Attica or other places.So, the western boundary of the city was set exactly here and the walls were dividing the area into the inner and outer zone. The Athenians added many buildings within the walls, left the cemetery outside the city, arranged their activities based on the new shape of the area and the Kerameikos neighbourhood became something completely different from a plain cemetery!In the site of Kerameikos, we have the best-preserved parts of these walls and so we can get a clear idea about the initial construction but also the following restorations in various phases since the wall, with many alterations, continued protecting the city till the Byzantine period. About 200m of the walls were revealed and can be seen within the archaeological site, at the southeast side, and actually there are layers of all the different phases of building! Do you know which is older? Easy! the lower the level we see, the older the period in question! So the first rows of stone on the ground are of the period of Themistocles.
Stop 15 - The Pompeion
Between the two gates there was a big, rectangular building, built in the late 5th or early 4th century BC. It had a big courtyard, surrounded on all four sides by colonnades and stoas/porticoes with rooms. Unlike the atmosphere in the cemetery, the feeling and the activities inside this building were very vivid and festive! Let’s see what was happening here! The Pompeion was used as preparation and starting place of the Panathenian procession and the other processions that were taking place annually in Athens during the religious festivals. Especially for the Panathenian procession we can imagine thousands of people, gathering here on a bright and hot August day, nicely dressed, holding their offerings, praying and chanting, walking on the Panathenian Way towards the Acropolis all the way through the Ancient Agora. The rooms around the big courtyard had nice decoration with statues or mosaics, and they were used for storing the sacred objects necessary for the celebrations, they were warehouses or dining facilities. The building was also used as a gymnasium. The entrance was from the northeast side, where we can see some ruins of the monumental gate, the Propylon, with beautiful ionic columns. It was destroyed during the Roman invasion in 86 BC. The site was later, in the 2nd century AD, occupied by a new bigger building, probably a warehouse.
Stop 16 - The outer Kerameikos
You are standing on the western side of the site. The view is dominated by the Holy Trinity church. It is a building of the 50s, unfinished and with a bad aesthetic result to the area. To tell you the truth, most of the local people don’t like it at all and it’s still a mystery how there was a license for a building on the archaeological site. In any case, there are many suggestions to demolish the church or, if it’s possible, to remove it! It was right here and beyond the church that the Athenians had their actual cemetery, outside the city. You see, according to the ancient beliefs, the cemeteries were always outside the city boundaries. In front of the Dipylon, there was the Kerameikos Street that was leading to Plato’s Academy. On both sides of this road, there were tombs of some of the most important Athenians.Do we see them? Unfortunately no. They were lost, however, we know about them from the descriptions of the ancient travellers, like Pausanias.Little after was the “demosion sima”, the public graveyard dedicated to the soldiers of Athens that fell on different battlefields and were brought and buried here, at public expense, and with all the necessary rituals, in order for the city to honour them as heroes. Somewhere here, most probably, the great Athenian politician Pericles, gave his famous funeral speech, Epitaphios, at the end of the first year of the Peloponnesian War, during the public funeral for the war dead. Among many scholars now, it’s considered one of the greatest speeches of all time and it was delivered to us by the famous historian Thucydides who actually described the long-lasting and disastrous Peloponnesian War, between Athens and Sparta and their allies. It was here, with the view of the Acropolis, the Street of the tombs, the mourning faces of the Athenians, that the great politician, with amazing virtuosity, waved a speech that glorifies Athens, talking about its achievements, democracy, participation, laws, traditions as a complex of elements that make Athens completely unique and different from the other city-states and mainly from its biggest rival, Sparta. And it’s exactly these values that completely justify the sacrifice of the war dead that the city was honouring. Can you imagine how strong an impact had those words on the Athenians?On the other side, in front of the Sacred Gate, was the Street of the tombs. On both sides, there were family tombs of prominent Athenians or foreigners who lived there. The tombs were reflecting not only the financial status of the dedicants but also the social and political conditions in Athens. For example, during the archaic period, wealth was shared among a small number of people and Athens was ruled by a group of aristocrats! So, the upper classes would definitely hire the most famous sculptors to create impressive monuments for their tombs. When democracy was established, a law was introduced forbidding the use of funeral monuments in order to eliminate social inequality. So people started using simple grave stelae with relief decoration. Still, however, those classical marble stelae were wonderful works of art and you may enjoy them at the Kerameikos Museum or the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.Among those, there are impressive monuments representing various periods and artistic styles. So walking by the Street of the tombs you will certainly see an impressive marble bull, then the famous stelae of Hegesos and of course the outstanding funeral monument of Dexileos.Allow me to tell you few things about those characteristic works of art, replicas in the archaeological site, with the original pieces in museums.
Stop 18 - The Grave stelae of Hegesos
It is considered one of the most beautiful and representative works of art of the attic sculpture and most probably was created by the famous sculptor Callimachus in the late 5th century BC. Callimachus, an architect and sculptor, was credited with the invention of the Corinthian capital, the leafy element on the top of a column, the creation of the Nike figures on the temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis and perhaps the Caryatids of the Erechtheion, but we are not sure about all those. The monument is exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum while in the site of Kerameikos there is a replica of it at the spot that was found in the late 19th century. It was made of marble and it’s about 1,5 m tall.Definitely, the stelae of Hegesos is one of the finest examples of the so-called rich style and it depicts the deceased, the young woman Hegesos, seating on a beautiful chair and supporting her feet on an elaborate footstool while in front of her stands her maidservant holding and offering a jewellery box to her lady who gazes at a piece of jewellery, painted and therefore missing nowadays. The two women are depicted wearing different clothes and having different hairstyles. The dead Hegeso wears a beautiful chiton full of draping and perhaps painted details while she has an elaborate hairstyle, in contrast to her maid who is simpler dressed and hair styled. Of course, the purpose of those details is to show the different social and financial statuses. The two figures are framed by a temple-like structure, with a small pediment on top bearing an inscription with the name of Hegesos, the daughter of Proxenos.It’s clearly a domestic scene that the unfortunate Hegeso had repeated many times while being alive and yet the facial details travel us instantly to a different world, the realm of Hades. Spend a few minutes in front of the stelae to notice the expression of the two women. How they show their emotional control and pride along with untold bitterness for the lost life, focusing primarily on the serious, empty gaze.This certain setting of the figures was rather common in the classical period and we see it often with the deceased sitting, depicted in profile and in bigger dimensions than the alive figures, in accordance with the belief that the dead enters a kind of a lesser-god state. The alive relatives are depicted standing with very touching farewell gestures but also with the deep hope that they will meet again someday, somewhere.
Stop 17 - The Funeral monument of Dexileos
You will recognize this monument by the figure of an attacking cavalryman holding a, missing nowadays, spear, on his horse against his enemy who’s laying on the ground. The young warrior, Dexileos, for whom this is a memorial, is shown as he was in life: on horseback, triumphing in battle over his opponent. It is an unusual for the period scene of battle, a depiction of a historical event, the battle of Corinth, between the Athenians and the Spartans, dating back in the early 4th century BE. From the inscription at the lower part of the monument, we learn that Dexileos was a young cavalryman who died at the age of 20, he was member of an aristocratic family of Athens and he was serving the Athenian cavalry, as part of his rite of passage perhaps, to become a full, democratic citizen, according to the state’s lows. This process included serving in the military for three years. His death at the battlefield was bringing pride to his family but also to the Athenian community since it was considered as a sacrifice for the Athenian state and for democracy that was finally restored after long adventures following the defeat of the Athenians at the Peloponnesian War and the ruling of the Thirty Tyrants.The monument was created by an unknown but skillful sculptor, it’s made of pentelic marble and it is little less than 2 m tall. The figure of Dexileos was undeniably emblematic and found its way to survive through centuries in other forms and expressions of the Christian tradition. It’s believed by many scholars that the depiction of the young man with his spear on his horse gave the inspiration to the Christian painters of later periods to portray two important figures of Saint George and Saint Demetrius in almost the same way.
Stop 19 - The Marble bull
The most characteristic perhaps funeral monument in the site of Kerameikos nowadays is the marble bull that was discovered in the funeral plot of Dionysios from the deme of Kollytos, close to the Kerameikos neighbourhood. At the same time, there are very few things that we know about this offering and most of those actually come from the authentic inscriptions that were found on it. There were several epigrams on the naiskos, the small temple-shaped construction, in front of the bull and among those we read an interesting one talking about the immortality of the soul, a topic introduced for the first time during this period.The monument was found by the street of the tombs, standing on a tall base. It represents the late classical period and was created in the mid-4th century BD, between 345-340 BC. We see the strong body of an almost attacking animal in full contrast with the calmness of the area. The figures of animals however were rather common so walking around the site or the museum, you will recognize lions, horses, dogs, birds or even mythical animals with combined elements, like the characteristic sphinx, with the body of a lion, wings of a vulture and head of a woman.The dedicant, Dionysios, was a man who lived in Athens and the Samos Island and died unmarried.
Stop 20 - Pillar Grave-Markers
Leaving behind you the Street of the Tombs heading to the Museum, you will meet a big number of pillar grave-markers, with a plain cylindrical shape, bearing inscriptions with the names of the dead. They were commonly used after a law was passed prohibiting the more elaborate monuments, for eliminating the social inequality but were also reflecting the economic decline of the city in the Hellenistic and early Roman period, the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC.Don’t miss the opportunity to visit the Museum to enrich your knowledge about the funeral rites, the offerings and the monuments from the graves and of course beautiful works of art representing various historical periods of Athens and Kerameikos.At this point, our exploration is completed and I hope you enjoyed this trip in time and space. I would like to thank you for your choice. If you are doing more sightseeing in Athens, please navigate on this app to find more audio tours or even better, visit our website at keytours.gr for joining a live guided tour.Wish you to enjoy the rest of you stay in Athens! Have fun!
