MARATHON - Tsepi - 2014

Marathon, Tsepi. M. Pantelidou Gofa (ASA) reports on the excavation of the rectangular built tomb 55 (Fig. 1) which, unlike those previously investigated, did not have an enclosure. The tomb had a built threshold on the east, by which was a pit containing a child’s cranium and beneath it the bones of a young adult with an Early Helladic II prochous.

Bones and six crania were excavated from the upper layer in the tomb, and from the layers beneath came a concentration of bones, a spherical chalcolithic vessel (3500-3200 BC), two crania and two Early Helladic II vessels (Fig. 2).

Two skeletons with the crania placed underneath them were found at the entrance of the tomb, and eight further crania, two pigment grinders and a three-handled spherical chalcolithic vessel came from other parts of the tomb.

The large number of crania (30 in total) and the locations of the bones are taken to indicate that the tomb was used as an ossuary, with the child burial at its threshold the last prior to its abandonment. This is also supported by the absence of an enclosure.