AIANE - 2006

Aiane E cemetery. G. Karamitrou-Mendesidi (Director, Λ' ΕΠΚΑ) reports continued excavation, bringing the total of graves discovered here to 174. In 2006, 9 rows of pits, dug into bedrock and oriented NE−SW were found to contain 94 burials (91 inhumations and 3 cremations), only 2 of which survive unlooted. The majority date to the 3rd and 2nd Cts BC, with some from the 4th Ct and some from previous campaigns indicating continuing use into the 1st Ct BC. Bodies were laid in wooden coffins or on biers (represented by quantities of iron nails): with no consistent orientation of the head. In 2 cases (graves 106 and 141), quantities of carbonized material in the grave likely result from funerary rites. There is some evidence that pits were reused: part of a cranium and 2 iron offerings in grave 140, for example, represent an earlier displaced burial. Grave goods, set at the feet, consist mainly of pots, with a limited number of metal objects, notably spearheads set at shoulder level and iron and bronze strigils, as well as jewellery and, rarely, coins. The unlooted male burial in grave 108 was accompanied by an iron spearhead and strigil and 4 pots (a cutaway -necked prochous and 3 drinking vessels − one with no handles − one bolsal and a one-handled vessel of the L4th−E3rd Ct with ΓΕ incised on the body and Β on the base). Grave 140 (also an unlooted male burial) had an iron spearhead and 4 pots (a prochous, 2 skyphoi, of which one is a local bg imitation of an Attic shape, and a L4th Ct local rf askos). The male burial in the robbed grave 139, dated to the M3rd quarter of the 4th Ct, is, together with grave 111 (which contained only a rf hydria), the earliest in the cemetery. It contained an iron spearhead and strigil and 5 Attic pots (a rf askos-strainer, a bolsal, a one-handler, a bowl and a squat lekythos of the E3rd quarter of the 4th Ct). The base of the one-handler is incised ΑΜΜ and the lekythos has a K at the centre base and 10 letters around the edge, of which A, M, Η, Λ, K, and probably N are legible. Two bronze mouths of aryballoi (probably with wooden or leather bodies) are noted from graves 115 and 146. Of a total 89 pots discovered, 34 are skyphoid forms, 15 hydriae (mostly unglazed, with one rf), 10 prochoes and 8 oinochoai, with other forms in smaller numbers. The scarcity of the Macedonian amphora types noted in previous excavations may be due to tomb robbing. A bronze phiale is the only metal vessel preserved. Three bronze rings have on their oval bezels representations of a seated male figure, a griffin and a bird.