CORFU - GARITSA - 2006

Corfu – city cemetery (Garitsa). The H’ ΕΠΚΑ reports on excavation of part of the city cemetery (Bouzi property). The area was used sporadically for burial in Archaic and Classical times, and more intensively in the Later Classical and Hellenistic periods. Thirty-one tombs and concentrations of bone, organised into groups, mostly date to the fourth-second centuries. Monumental tombs were also found. The oldest grave is a pithos containing nine inhumations and an enchytrismos dating from the late seventh to fifth centuries. Fourth- to second-century burials are mostly inhumations in pits oriented north-south, and with few or no grave goods. During the second century, pits were slowly replaced by tile graves, oriented east-west and with more offerings. Through the fourth century, a large ‘ritual’ pyre (ca. 6-7m²), with largely quantities of pottery, notably 1,400 partially preserved late fifth- to fourth-century plain vessels, probably relates to chthonic cult practice characterised by the consumption of food and drink (fig. 1). A late fourth- or third-century inscribed funerary stele attests to a Macedonian presence.